


More Than This

by MoldyMoo



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2018-12-02 15:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 65,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11511849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoldyMoo/pseuds/MoldyMoo
Summary: Story starts when Cap falls from the Helicarrier. Bucky has a new mission-to find out who he is and where he belongs. With his memories slowly returning the longer he is out of cryostasis, the more he realizes what he has to do. Summary will change as the story progresses and will contain other Avengers. BuckyxOC





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m with you till the end of the line.”

Something inside the Winter Soldier froze—more than just his actions. He stared at the mission is his hands with wide eyes. In that moment, his head felt clearer—freer. Like it was his mind. For the first time in a long time. But in this single moment of hesitation, the ground beneath them shuddered. On pure survival instinct, the Winter Soldier grasped a heavy metal I beam still attached to the sip as the ground gave out.

As he watched his mission—no, he had been more than that to him in his life, once upon a time—his once friend drop into the Potomac, it was like he was Steve back in 1942 on that train, watching his best friend fall. Debris crashed in after him and suddenly Captain America was no longer visible. He would be left to die in the water. No.

Without a second thought—or even a first thought—the Winter Soldier let go of the ship and dove down into the water. The second he hit the water, a pain shot up from his left arm, a vision of a bloodied left arm next to him on a gurney springing to his mind for a split second. But he pushed down the pain and swam down to the blur of red white and blue, easily seeable even in the murky waters.

The Winter Soldier reached out with his “good arm,” ironically the metal one, and began to pull Steve’s body towards the surface. He gripped the front of his uniform tightly and somehow made it to the shore with his flesh arm pinned to his chest and dead weight occupying the other. But the feeling of protection was more like how his missions felt. Protecting Steve right now from drowning felt like his mission.

He dropped the man on his back and took a step away from him, eyes scanning the bloodied suit. Bullet holes dotted the fabric, the stains of blood making them easy to find. I know him, he kept chanting in his head, willing the repressed memories to surface at his command, to which they did not oblige. But he didn’t dare touch Steve. The wounds, the bullet holes—he inflicted them. 

Steve coughed weakly, water spilling from his lips. He was alive. The Winter Soldier backed away slowly, watching the slow rise and fall of Steve’s chest. There would be others looking for him. They would check the riverbanks first. He needed to leave before they came. There would be no forgiveness, especially if he stayed.

Worst of all, he knew in the back of his mind somehow, that Steve might actually forgive him—and he wasn’t ready for that. Slowly he’d been remembering things that had been shocked from his conscious mind. Mostly his other missions, but some of his family. Some of Steve. He knew him.

He began to reach up with his flesh hand to pull the wet hair away from his eyes, but the searing pain in his shoulder stopped. The world around him faded away and suddenly he was standing in an alley a lifetime ago. Steve, smaller, frailer, was in the corner of his eye, slumped against the wall breathing heavily.

He focused back on the man in his hand, a well-placed punch knocking him out cold. He let him fall to the ground in a heap next to two others. “You alright?” he muttered, taking a step over the bodies towards his friend.

“Yeah,” Steve wheezed.

“No you’re not,” he muttered, reaching down to pull Steve off the ground. The minute he gripped Steve’s shoulder to pull him up, he noticed a second too late that it didn’t look right. Steve let out a gasp of pain and jerked away from the touch.

“Okay,” Steve grunted, pushing himself up off the ground with his good arm. “But I think I dodged an asthma attack.”

“You’ve got a dislocated shoulder, Steve,” he rolled his eyes. “C’mon, punk. Hospital is this way.” He led the way out of the alley, Steve’s battered arm cradled against his chest.

“Jerk,” Steve grumbled. “But thanks.”

The Winter Soldier blinked and suddenly he was back in the woods next to the Potomac, halfway back to the city. He glanced over his shoulder towards the sounds of boat motors and spotted a small rescue boat making its way towards Steve. Good, he thought, content knowing for sure they had found him.

He turned his back and began to focus entirely on himself for the time being. He needed medical help with his arm and there was no way in hell he was going back to Hydra. Not right now. He needed to figure things out first. But priority number one was his arm. He glanced down at his waterlogged clothes.

Stopping at the edge of the woods, he carefully removed the thicker black top, then thick black turtle neck, gritting his teeth through the pain. Although he was now shirtless, hoped he could pass off as an officer or even a SHIELD agent in his black cargo pants, holsters, and combat boots. A quick inventory revealed he’d lost all his guns, but not all his knives. For persuasion, he told himself as he made his way towards what looked like a hospital—at least, it was where all the ambulances were headed.

“I require medical attention for my arm,” he grunted once he’d made his way into the lobby. The doctor in a white coat behind the nurse’s desk looked up, eyes immediately draw to the gleaming metal one of his left. He narrowed his eyes. “My right arm.”

“Oh,” she managed. “Uhm, are—are you a SHIELD agent?”

“Doesn’t SHIELD have their own medical staff?” a nurse muttered next to him as she leaned over the counter and swapped files.

“Well, considering half the building ended up in the Potomac about an hour ago—” the doctor said.

“—I think so did he,” the second murmured with a glance in his direction.

“Look,” he snapped, voice low and dangerous. “Can you reset my arm, or not?”

After a second the Doctor nodded. “We don’t have available rooms, so it’s going to be in a hallway somewhere, wherever we can find room.”

The Winter Soldier said nothing, but followed him down the chaotic hallways filled with injured people on gurneys, children crying, families torn. The second hand destruction he’d caused in his pursuit of both the important SHIELD agent, and Steve. But he couldn’t look away.

Weren’t these the people he’d fought in the war to protect? What had happened? What had driven him to become this? This, this assassin? He knew that man, Steve. He knew Steve had the answers.

As they walked down the halls, people begged the doctor to stop and help them. They begged for his attention. Most of them were being tended to by nurses—wounds like that needed no diagnosis. They needed stitches, bandages, and antiseptic. These people didn’t want a doctor. They wanted a miracle.

The Doctor stopped at an empty gurney and motioned for the Winter Soldier to hop on. 

“You say you need your arm reset?” The Doctor came over and began to gently prod at his shoulder. “I think we can skip the x-ray—that would take hours due to the wait. I’m fairly certain it’s a common dislocation. I’ll be right back."

Being the place where all the wounded went, the Winter Soldier was surprised he had not been recognized yet. Especially with the arm. But then again, in a place like the hospital, the focus was on helping people. They didn’t notice anyone but their own problems.

“So you work for SHIELD,” the doctor muttered when he came back with a needle. “Is that how you lost that arm?”

“I lost it in the war,” he grunted. “What’s that?” He felt his muscles tense up, muscle memory afraid of doctors coming at him. A vision of a scientist in a white coat hovering over him, grinning, telling him what a valuable asset he’d be, flashed before his eyes and he slammed back against the wall.

The doctor, noticing the reaction, smiled kindly. “Anesthetic. I won’t use it if you don’t want me to, but it will hurt like hell if I don’t.”

“Don’t.” He was pretty sure it wouldn’t work on him anyway. Whatever the scientists did to him, he knew anesthetics didn’t work.

“Alright.” He put the cap back on the needle and dropped it into his lab coat pocket. He glanced around the hallway. “You, can you help me for a minute?” he pointed to a woman in light blue scrubs as she was walking down the hall.

“But I’m not—”

“It’ll just take a second, nurse.”

The Winter Soldier noted the subtle raise of her eyebrows, head twisting slightly in small surprise.

“Alright,” she said, stepping up next to the bed. “What do you need me to do?”

“He’s a SHIELD agent, dislocated shoulder.” The Doctor motioned for her to stand at the head of the gurney. “Lie on your back, please.” He shook out a spare sheet and wrapped it under the soldier’s armpit, handing the ends to the woman above his head. “This might hurt a bit. Still don’t want the anesthetic?” The Winter Soldier shook his head.

A part of him waited for someone to stick a mouth guard between his teeth, but it never came. The Doctor gripped his forearm and gently angled it down and away from the soldier’s body. “On three.” The Doctor shifted his gaze down to him. “Try to relax the muscles in your shoulder.”

He let out a breath as the Doctor counted down. A grunt left his lips as the doctor pulled down on his arm while the nurse pulled in the opposite direction with the sheet. He felt a painful pop in his shoulder and instantly it felt better. Not painless, but he knew it wasn’t dislocated anymore.

“That should do it. Let me go get you a sling and a prescription and you’ll be good to go,” the Doctor told him before walking away.

The Winter Soldier sat up and glanced up at the nurse quickly, then did a double take. “Connie.” The name slipped his lips before he could catch himself, and he didn’t know where the name came from. At this point, he had no memory of this woman in blue scrubs with dark wavy hair and eyes to match.

“I’m sorry?” she said. “My name is Clara.” 

“You’re British,” he noted. 

“Thought I was someone else?” she smirked. When he didn’t answer her voice dropped to a whisper. “And between you and me, I know you’re not from SHIELD. I’m the head of the medical department, and I’ve never seen you before. I’d remember and arm like that.”

He hopped off the gurney and began walking back down the hall the way he’d come. He didn’t need someone like her, someone actually from SHIELD prodding into who he was.

“Hey, wait,” she called after him, running to catch up. “You should wait for the sling and the medication—you could injure your arm further.”

“I’m fine.”

“What’s your name?” He ignored her and kept walking. Why had she taken an interest in him anyways? She caught up to him and tugged his metal arm. On an instinct instilled in him by Hydra, he whipped around and pushed her into the wall, pinning her there by her shoulders. “I’m sorry, I’m just really interested in your arm. It’s kinda cool to be honest.”

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“My name is Clara.” She tried to push him away but he stood his ground. “Look, if you’re really with SHIELD, their barracks got destroyed when the helicarriers came down—I know because I was almost buried underneath them.” He loosened his grip on her shoulders when she rolled up one sleeve to show her whole forearm covered in gauze. “23 stitches.”

He stared at her, not sure what to do. This woman claimed to only be interested in his arm. And being in the medical field, he could see why. But being that she was also a part of SHIELD, he knew she would find out who he was and what he’d done if she didn’t already know.

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted finally.

Again, the world dissolved in shades of browns and grays and when he blinked, he was no longer standing in the hallway at a hospital, he was in a bar. Swing music played loudly from a stage to his left, and a pretty dark haired girl sat on a stool to his right sipping from a glass of what looked like simply water.

“So what’s your name, Soldier?” she was asking with a coy smile.

“Sergeant Bucky Barnes,” he told her.

“Well, Sergeant Barnes,” she said, pushing her drink away from her and hopping off the stool. “Take me dancing and you can call me Connie.”

“Hey, are you alright?” The voice cut the memory short and in the next second he was looking into Clara’s worried face. “Okay, let’s get you out of here.” She helped him off the wall her was currently slumped against and wrapped his metal arm over her shoulder, her own arm around his waist. He didn’t fight her. Because she looked exactly like Connie.


	2. Chapter 2

The Winter Soldier managed to get into the cab Clara hailed with a little unnecessary help on her part. She leaned forward and gave the driver instructions on their destination, and the address nagged at his mind for a second, a bit familiar. He wondered shortly if another memory would surface.

“So, you don’t know your name,” she started conversationally. “What do I call you?”

He didn’t answer. How could he? What could he tell her to call him? Bucky, like Steve did? Winter Soldier, like Hydra did? No. Right now, he didn’t know who he was. He had no name.

“Okay,” she finally drawled after a few minutes of silence, looking out the windows. “So you don’t know your name—I’m pretty sure you don’t work for SHIELD.” He kept quiet still. “Where are you from?”

“I don’t know.”

The taxi stopped and Clara glanced out the window to ensure they were at her apartment complex before she leaned forward to pay the driver as he got out.

“Good luck with him,” he heard the driver mutter to her as she got out.

The Winter Soldier stared up at the building. No. He didn’t need a memory flashback. He remembered this place. He glanced behind him at the ledge of the building across the street where he’d stood, one boot up on the edge of the building, unregistered gun in his hands, taking aim on a mission. He stared back at the broken window on one of the higher floors.

“There was a shooting a couple days ago.” Clara joined him in looking at the window. “Luckily I was at SHIELD when it happened. They shot the director of SHIELD, actually.”

“I know.”

She shook her head. “It was all over the news.” She gently tugged on his hand. “Let’s get you inside and get you a shirt or something.”

The Winter Soldier glanced down at his bare chest and followed her to a room on the bottom floor. As soon as the front door was shut, a heard nails scratching on the wood floor as something tore down the hall towards them. Instinctually, he pressed his back against the door and flipped the deadbolt quietly.

“Sorry, I should have warned you,” Clara said, scratching the small brown and white spaniel behind the ears. It was a small dog, perky and excited to see people. “I’m watching her while a friend is on assignment overseas. She’s really friendly.” She picked the dog up and headed down into the apartment. “I’m just gonna lock her up in my bedroom for now.”

He stood awkwardly in the living room looking around. Things had changed. A large, flat TV sat against the far wall, a light colored couch against the wall across the room. A bookshelf stood next to the window filled with books and small photo frames.

And out the window he could clearly see the building he’d stood on top of days earlier. That was the first time he’d seen Steve—though he hadn’t known then that he knew the man.

He whipped around when he heard her come back into the room. “Here,” she said, tossing him the shirt she had in her hands. “That should fit you. Sit.” She gestured to the couch. But he didn’t move.

“Okay, so, didn’t want to start this in the car because I work for SHIELD—you never know who’s listening,” she started, moving to the small kitchenette and pulling two glasses down from a cabinet. “But I’m a doctor.”

“I got that much,” he muttered. She filled the glasses with water and walked back into the living room slowly, placing both glasses in the table before sitting in the armchair next to the couch.

“Yeah, but it’s more than that,” she told him. “I’ve dealt with enough mentally damaged operatives to know one when I see one.”

“I don’t work for SHIELD,” he finally admitted to her, still standing.

She offered up a small smile and tucked some of her dark hair behind her ear. “I know.”

“Then how do you know I’m not a threat?” he challenged.

“You’re not armed.” He eyes traveled down across his still bare chest and down to his empty holsters.

He felt his jaw twitch. Something in him did not like how comfortable she was around him. He didn’t like that she wasn’t intimidated, that she wasn’t immediately submissive to him. She wasn’t as in control as she thought. Reaching around to the back of his pants, he pulled out a knife and flashed it to her.

The instant look of slight fear on her face was slightly gratifying for him. No, he decided. This is wrong—she wasn’t his mission. But then again, the other people in the hospital weren’t his mission but he’d still ended up hurting them. 

No, he shouted in his head, no more of this. He dropped the knife onto the table.

“Alright, point made,” she murmured, taking a sip of water, her demeanor flipping to professional right before his eyes. He’d seen it in his handlers—the scientists in charge of him when he was at base. They flipped between scared and professional enough in front of him. “You can sit.” She gestured again to the couch.

After a pause, he pulled the shirt over his head and sat on the edge of the couch. She wasn’t making demands like Hydra did, he noted. She was offering. Letting him decide. This little bit of mental freedom felt…good. To be able to think and do things for himself. To not have to listen to orders.

“So, seeing as I don’t have a workplace anymore what with the destruction of SHIELD’s HQ, it looks like I’m getting some much deserved vacation time,” she laughed. “But I’d really like to help you.”

“Why?”

“I’m a doctor—you don’t go through years of training and a lifetime of debt unless it’s your calling,” she explained. 

She had a calling. Did he? Did the Winter Soldier have a calling? Is that why he was the way he was?

“I grew up in the UK until I was fifteen,” she began suddenly. “I moved to North Carolina with my father when his mother, my grandmother, was having some trouble living on her own in New York. Mum died when I was little. When my grandmother died when I was eighteen. I went on to study medicine at Duke University. Dad moved back to the UK, I moved to DC where Nick Fury recruited me for his medical team. Over time, I worked my way up the ladder.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked finally, quietly.

“Because I want you to tell me about yourself, what you know. I don’t expect you to do anything I wouldn’t be willing to do.” He just stared at her. Again, she was giving him options. She wasn’t demanding anything. She didn’t demand a mission report. She was waiting for him. It was all in his hands.

“I don’t know.”

“You say you don’t know your name, but when you first saw me, you called me Connie. Do you remember Connie?”

He licked his lips. He did remember Connie. “I met her in a bar.”

“What does she look like?”

“She had dark hair, long—past her shoulders,” he whispered, remembering. He saw her then, standing in front of him. She was laughing as the music played. They were at some sort of fair. He was in a military uniform like he was last time he remembered her, but she was in a white dress with a matching sweater, colorful embroider across the top. He blinked and it was gone. But the face of that woman was still in the room. “She looked a lot like you.”

Clara smiled. “Well that’s something. You knew a girl named Connie. You met her at a bar. Do you have any other memories of her?”

“No. That’s it.”

“Okay. You don’t know your name, if you know what year you were born in, we can look up common—”

“1918.” It was out of his mouth before he knew where it came from.

“I’m sorry?”

He looked straight at her, a new resolve bubbling inside himself. No more games “There are things about me that if I told you, you would turn me in to SHIELD,” he began. “And I cannot afford that. I barely remember who I am, but the things I do remember—”

“I can’t turn you into SHIELD if SHIELD doesn’t exist,” she interrupted, irritating him. “But if you want me to help you like I want to, you need to tell me everything. Doctor patient confidentiality. I can’t legally tell anyone anything unless it could harm you, others, or is a threat to national security.”

“I may fall into one or more of those,” he grunted, standing. “This was a bad idea.” He made his way to the door, but she jumped up and rushed to place herself against the door, careful not to touch him lest he have another violent reaction like he did in the hospital.

“Look, I will respect that you don’t want to tell me about yourself right now, but like I said in the hospital, your arm is really interesting—if you’d just let me and a friend take one quick look at it, if you want to leave, I’ll let you.”

“You want to study me?” he ground out.

“No,” she swallowed. “Just your arm. I know a guy with some hi-tech equipment and I know for a fact he would love to see how it works.” The Winter Soldier stayed silent. “Please? I’ll trade you—you can stay here in my apartment as long as you like—no questions about you or your past—just let me take you to him for a once over of your arm.”

“Why?” he managed after a second.

“An arm like that—you can move it on your own—that kind of technology can help thousands of people,” she breathed, letting her muscles relax when she saw the storm in his eyes soften.

He took a step back and nodded once, moving so she could walk back into the house.

She grinned. “Thank you,” she said earnestly, words he hadn’t heard in a long, long time. Something inside him warmed and he felt slightly embarrassed. He heard her messing around in her room before she came back out with a duffle bag in one hand and a phone in the other pressed to her ear. “Stark? Yeah, I’m on my way—I have something you’re gonna wanna see.”


	3. Chapter 3

He stood in the living room watching as she talked quickly on the phone. A Newspaper on her counter caught his eye and he unfolded it to look at the page advertising an exhibit at the Smithsonian dedicated to Captain America.

Clara hung up, dropped the bag by the door.

“I need to drop the dog off at a friend’s place across town, but Tony is arranging a flight for us. We’ll have about two and a half hours before we have to be at the airport. Do you want to come with me or hang out here?”

He folded the newspaper and turned to look at here. “I’ll stay behind.”

“Alright, I’ll be back in two hours and we’ll go. I’m going to stop by what’s left of SHIELD and see if they’ll let me get some things from my office if it’s still there.”

He watched as she retrieved the dog from her room, hooked her leash to her collar, and led her out of the apartment. He waited a few minutes, reading over the details of the museum as he pulled on the jacket. This exhibit would tell him more about the man that was his mission—more true facts than he’d been fed at Hydra, which had been scarce anyways.

Worried he’d be recognized, he pulled on a jean jacket that he found on a hook by the door, deciding to take a worn hat from the hook as well. He tucked his hair behind his ears and pulled on the hat, took the paper, and headed out. As long as he was back before she was—not that he needed permission to leave. The museum was only a short, fifteen minute walk a couple blocks away. Her apartment had been relatively close to SHIELD headquarters, which had been placed in a prominent part of the city.

He walked up the steps, his hands in his pockets. The sensory array in his arm came in handy when he snuck in past the guards—he had no money on him, might as well use his stealth training. 

He was determined to find out what kind of man this Steve was. More importantly—who he was to him.

The various plaques detailed Steve’s life from before the super soldier serum to shortly after. Then he walked up to a bit that talked about the Howling Commandos. He recognized his own face next to Steve’s in the lineup.

They were in World War II together? On the same side? He fought in the war for the American’s with Captain America himself. So why was Captain America his target now? Why were they suddenly enemies—at least to him? Steve had made it clear he still thought of him as a friend.

The Winter Soldier turned to continue further into the exhibit and then walked up to the next part in awe. A large holographic image stood before him. This piece was all about him. James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, it read. The story informed him that he was Steve’s childhood friend. Was drafted, sent to England, and then was captured. If Steve hadn’t come after him, Bucky would have been killed.

But Steve had gone in and saved them all. There was a fuzzy video of him in a dark jacket standing next to a suited-up Steve, leaning over maps, making jokes. It was like he was looking at two different people. The person he was, and the person he is now. No, that wasn’t true, he decided. He wasn’t the Winter Soldier anymore, either. If he was, there would have been a trail of destruction behind him.

The text also told him he died falling off a train during a mission. He remembered flashes of pain, his left arm bleeding, his body broken. But other than that, no new memories resurfaced like he had hoped.

What was left of Bucky, this “Winter Soldier,” looked up sadly at the monument made for a great man. Could he be that again? Could he be a soldier for the “right side” again? Would he ever be the man who deserved this kind of remembrance? Or would he always have the blood on his hands that he did now?

He averted his eyes and backed away, leaving the museum and heading back for the apartment to wait for Clara.

XXX

Hours later, the Winter Soldier stepped out of the car feeling more exhausted than he could remember ever being despite having spent the last hour or so just traveling from DC to New York City. 

“What happened here?” he muttered, following her into the building that had seen better days. The sounds of the city, the cars and people, put his nerves at ease a bit. It felt like…like home.

Clara held the door open for him and let out a laugh, stopping when she saw his stern face. He reached around her and held the door open for her, waiting for her to go in first. “You’re kidding, right?” But he said nothing. She led the way to the receptionist desk at the back of the lobby, murmuring to him, “It was all over the news. Alien invasion?”

His eyebrows twitched a bit, but he otherwise didn’t respond.

“Hi, we’re here to see Mr. Stark—I called him earlier, he should be expecting us,” she told the receptionist. Even though it was already nearing 7pm, the building was still bustling with people—employees in suits and construction men.

“What’s your name?” The receptionist glanced over uneasily at the man standing behind Clara, making his muscles tighten and tense in ways he wish they wouldn’t. This woman did nothing wrong. She was a receptionist. She wasn’t a threat—she wasn’t even armed. She. Was not. A target.

“Dr. Clara Maitland.” She glanced over her shoulder then added, “And friend.”

The receptionist nodded then picked up the phone. “Mr. Stark, Dr. Maitland and friend are in the lobby.” She placed the receiver back on its cradle and offered a small smile. “Someone will be down in a minute.”

“Thank you.” Clara walked away from the desk to plush benches lined against a fountain in the center of the room. “So you don’t remember seeing anything on the news about aliens invading New York?”

“Does that kind of thing happen often?” he asked quietly, hesitantly taking a seat next to her.

She let out a small chuckle. “Thank, God, no,” she told him. “But thankfully the Avengers were there. The guy you’ll meet in a minute, he saved the entire city from a bomb.”

“The Avengers?”

Clara blinked for a second. It was one thing to not know about the aliens—which was really strange considering it had been an international worry since it happened—but to not know about the people who helped stop it? She was leaning more towards amnesia with this man. “Okay.” She let out a breath, switching back to professional mode. “The Avengers was a program created by SHIELD to deal with problems that the rest of the government cannot.” She began to tick off names on her fingers. “The Avengers are Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, the Hulk, Thor, and Captain America.”

“Captain America…” He let out a shuddering breath as the scenery around him changed and he was suddenly standing in a crowd of people—of soldiers. “So, ‘Captain America,’ huh, punk?”

The tall man in front of him took off his helmet and grinned, his blond hair muddy with dirt and grime. “Don’t laugh, jerk, I didn’t pick it out.” He gestured to a poster hanging near the tents proclaiming a tour of the American hero.

“Dr. Maitland.” The voice cut through his being and he blinked, looking up at a redheaded woman in jeans and a button up walking across the lobby towards them. He jumped to his feet. “How have you been doing? We heard what happened in DC earlier today, are you alright? You weren’t in the building—”

Clara smiled and stood while the woman shot off question after question. “I’m fine, Ms. Potts. A little knocked around, but otherwise I’m fine.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.” She turned to the Winter Soldier and held out her hand, which he shook automatically. “I’m Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries.” Her eyes, like everyone else’s, flickered down to his arm exposed from the t-shirt he’d borrowed from Clara. “Interesting tech.”

He gave her a nod, but otherwise stayed silent. He didn’t have a name to offer up still. He didn’t know who Bucky was. He didn’t know why he was the Winter Soldier.

Knowingly, Clara jumped in. “So how is Stark doing? When I called him earlier he sounded uptight.”

Pepper’s face fell slightly, but she motioned for them to follow her to the elevator. “Yes, well, he’s been on the internet all day.” She pressed the button for the top floor and the door shut.

“So he’s been reading through…all of it?” Clara asked quietly.

“As far as I know, yeah,” Pepper sighed. “He knew a lot of the information already when he hacked SHIELD months ago, but a lot of the stuff about Hydra…”

“He’s got information on Hydra?” the Winter Soldier’s voice pierced the quiet air of the elevator

“Yeah, SHIELD was infected with Hydra members. God knows how long,” Clara explained, her voice still quiet.

The elevator doors opened with a ding and he let the ladies step out first.

“Well this is new, you’re usually up running around, not sitting behind a desk,” Clara called across the room to a dark haired man behind a large desk, glasses on, pen between his teeth.

The man looked up and the pen bounced off the desk and dropped to the floor. He jumped to his feet, chair flying back, and immediately jumped across the desk, pulling Pepper behind him. “Pepper—get back,” he was yelling.

“Tony—” she began to groan, rolling her eyes.

“Pepper!” he yelled, voice shaking. “You.” The growl was directed not at Clara, but at the man she had brought with her. Something flew in from the ceiling and suddenly his arms were covered in red and gold steel. He flew foreword and grasped the man by the shoulders, forcing him back away from the ladies.

The Winter Soldier’s hands flew up to push back, the metal plates in his left arm rippling.

“Tony, stop—” But Pepper’s words were drowned out by Tony’s sudden yelling.

“Was it you?” he demanded. “Did you cause that accident?”

“Tony, what are you talking about?” Clara placed herself between the Winter Soldier, who she knew was about to go on the offensive—she could tell from the tilt of his head, the way his eyes were pinned to Tony.

“Did Hydra hire you to kill my parents in 1991?” Tony demanded, voice shaking in anger.


	4. Chapter 4

“Was it you?” Tony demanded. “Did you cause that accident?”

“Tony, what are you talking about?” Clara placed herself between the Winter Soldier, who she knew was about to go on the offensive—she could tell from the tilt of his head, the way his eyes were pinned to Tony.

“Did Hydra hire you to kill my parents in 1991?” Tony demanded, voice shaking in anger. He tried to push Clara out of the way, but she managed to stand her ground.

“Tony, back off—”

“I don’t know.”

Everything in the room froze.

“You don’t know?” Tony snapped. Pepper joined Clara in pulling him back away from the Winter Soldier.

“He has amnesia, Tony—he doesn’t even know who he is,” Clara grunted, managing to push him back into the desk.

“Well let me tell you who he is based on the files I’ve been reading all day,” Tony snapped, walking back around to his computer. He put his fingers to the screen, tapped a few buttons, and then dragged them across the surface. Suddenly the room was full of words and videos.

The Winter Soldier had seen some outrageous tech working for Hydra, but he had seen nothing like this before.

“You were born in—” Tony began angrily.

“1918,” Clara gasped. 

“My real name is James Barnes,” he told her quietly. “Steve called me Bucky when I met him the other day.”

“And today?” Tony guessed, pulling up a video of the helicarriers crashing.

The Winter Soldier didn’t respond to him, but he felt Clara step closer to him, regardless of the things he knew she could see all around her. The things he had done over the past few days. He’d killed Fury. He’d tried to kill others. He was the reason the hospital she found him in was so full. The reason she was in that hospital.

“Steve is in the hospital right now,” Tony told him. Just another among the many he had put in a similar situation. Why was Steve special? Something in his mind told him he should be.

“I knew him,” the Winter Soldier said quietly, walking over to a wall with a few sepia photos. There weren’t many—only two or three, but he knew they were him. One he was standing with Captain America. 

“Why can’t I remember any of this?” he growled, whipping around to his accuser. “If you think you know me so well, why can’t I remember being Bucky? Why can’t I remember being anything other than the Winter Soldier?”

“Tony, stop this,” Pepper said finally.

“This is helping no one,” Clara declared. She rounded on Tony. “You have proof Hydra may have had a hand in your parents’ deaths, but you have no proof it was him. He has some form of amnesia. Repressed memories have been making themselves known since I met him in the hospital this morning.”

“Wow,” a new voice murmured. “And I thought I had anger issues.”

“Not the time, Bruce,” Tony muttered, losing steam. 

The Winter Soldier’s eyes lingered on the news reels of him in the black mask and goggles, destroying the highway in his pursuit of Steve and his friends. He remembered those. He remembered those as he dragged Steve’s body out of the Potomac.

Could he be more than the Winter Soldier? What had driven him to be that? What had made him leave behind that life—leave behind Bucky and become this emotionless assassin? The same questions over and over. He felt like he was running in circles now. 

“I was in the army,” he murmured, looking back behind him at a sepia photo of him in uniform. He remembered that.

“Drafted,” he sighed to himself, no longer in Stark’s tower, but in a 30s style kitchen. He gripped the counter and stared down at the letter lying in front of him. He’d been drafted into the war. His life was about to change.

He folded the letter and stuffed it in his jacket pocket, leaving the kitchen, crossing the living room. Ignoring his mother who was calling him name, he slammed the front door shut after him. He wasn’t thinking about where he was going, but he ended up in front of the most familiar door in the world.

Kicking aside the brick he picked up the spare key and let himself in.

“Hey, Buck,” a voice called to him when he entered the kitchen, flopping down into a kitchen chair. “Hey, what’s wrong? Is your mom okay? Rebecca?”

God, how was he supposed to tell Steve—Steve who wanted nothing more than to join the army—that he’d been drafted, forced to do something he would rather do anything but.

The memory faded as insistent words, “Hey, wake up,” broke through his confused stupor.

“Connie,” he breathed, blinking, wondering how he gotten on the floor.

“Would it be alright if I checked your head?” the man Tony had called Bruce was asking him, hovering over him. 

Again, someone was giving him a choice. He nodded his consent after making sure he had no needles or anything of the sort on him. He was wearing simply khaki’s and a button down, the sleeves rolled up.

Bruce’s fingers flitted lightly around the back of his skull at the back of his neck and behind his ears. The look on his face was not one he ever liked seeing on the faces of the scientists at Hydra.

The Winter Soldier pushed them all away, standing up. “What?”

“Look, I can’t say I know what you’ve been through,” Bruce started, “but I know what it’s like being a lab rat. But I really want to do a scan of your head—I think Hydra may have implanted something in your head.”

“What?” Clara led the soldier to a chair Pepper dragged over from the desk. Without asking, she placed her fingers behind his ears, his hands shooting up and gripping her wrists tightly. When he realized she hadn’t been doing anything with malicious intent—he had vastly over reacted—he let his hands slide off her wrists and she continued to prod lightly.

“I can feel something behind his left ear—could be nothing, but the amnesia you explained to me—it’s not normal.”

“How long was I out?” he muttered to Clara, noticing the videos and photos were gone, and the windows were completely dark now, the sun having gone down.

“About half an hour,” Tony informed him from behind the computer again.

“I know I told you back at my apartment that we wouldn’t go into your past anymore,” Clara began, “but I really think we can help you.” His eyes locked with hers.

What would they do if he said no? She had already gotten these three other people involved with him—they could turn him into SHIELD or worse—Hydra. 

“You’ve walked into the HQ of Misfits—you’re safe here,” Bruce tried.

“Once he’s back on his feet we can get Cap here,” Tony sighed, “If anyone, he’ll know the most—”

“No,” the Winter Soldier snapped, standing. His head spun and exhaustion was taking over him again. When was the last time he slept?

“Why not?” 

“I’m not…the things I’ve done,” he tried to explain in a hurry. “I can’t face—I don’t—”

“Let’s table that idea for now,” Clara suggested. “For now, can we let Dr. Banner scan you for Hydra’s tech?”

He nodded once, but firmly. “Just—from what I can remember, the doctors and scientists that have handled me in the past—”

Bruce held up a hand and offered a small smile. “We’ll take it slow.” 

The Winter Solder looked to Clara, who only raised her eyebrows, awaiting his response. How had he, in one day, gone from Hydra, his owners, his commanders, to having…free will? Because he’d chanced upon this female doctor in a hospital in DC?

“Alright.”

Bruce turned to Tony, “see if you can have an x-ray machine brought up to the lab?”

“Sure. I’ll leave you to that, then,” Tony murmured from his desk. “We can talk about the arm when the more pressing matters are dealt with.”

Clara nodded and followed the other two back into the elevator.

Once the doors were shut and they could hear the elevator leave the floor, Pepper looked at Tony and crossed her arms.

“What?”

“I thought you destroyed the suits.”

He gave her a grin and straightened up, shifting his focus from the computer to her. “Come on, you don’t think I’d leave us completely defenseless, did you?”

She sighed and walked around the table. “Not at all. I figured you’d give Dummy a gun as defense.”

“I gave Dummy a fire extinguisher once and that was the worst decision of my life. I’m not giving him lethal projectiles,” Tony argued lightheartedly. 

“Tony,” she started seriously, cupping his face in her hands to make sure she had his full attention. “I’m sorry about your parents. Really, I am—but whether or not that man had anything to do with it changes nothing.”

“Pep, my parents were murdered,” Tony whispered to her. “Dad and I might not have gotten along, but they were still my parents. If he had anything to do with it—”

“Then what? You’ll have him thrown in jail? Make him suffer?” Pepper guessed. She let him go and stepped away, finding her shoes by the door. “It looks to me like he’s already suffering.”

Tony let out a puff of air. “I have to let Cap know he’s here, though.”

“I know,” Pepper murmured, moving back to him to give him a lingering kiss. “I’m going to make dinner and go to bed. I’ll see you later, I assume?”

Tony gave her another quick kiss before she left. Once he was alone, he immediately dialed the number for Steve’s room at the hospital in DC.

“Hello?”

“This isn’t Steve, who is this?” Tony demanded.

“This is Sam,” the man responded slowly. “I’m a friend—”

“Ah, codename Falcon. Right. Steve hasn’t woken up yet?”

“Not yet—who is this?”

“Tony Stark,” he explained quickly. “Tell Steve to give me a call when he wakes up—I’ve got a friend of his here and Steve and I need to have a little conversation.”

“Sure thing.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Just lay back, get comfortable,” Bruce muttered, moving different things around on tables.

They were in a large, well-lit room full of rows and rows of long tables. He had rolled in a gurney from another room. The Winter soldier stared at it for a second, a feeling kin to loathing washing over him. His nerves were shot and he felt like he was going to burst. But he pushed it all down and got onto the gurney anyways.

“So what are you going to do,” Clara asked, watching as the Winter Soldier lay back on the table, eyes never leaving the other doctor.

Bruce walked across the room and opened a cabinet along the wall. “Well, we can’t do an MRI—if there’s any metal in his head, it’ll rip it out—and then there’s the more obvious piece of metal.”

“So, what then?” Clara asked. “If we can’t scan his brain function—You think they implanted something in his head? Like, computer pieces?” Bruce just shrugged. “Think it’ll show up on an x-ray?”

“I have some theories as to what’s already in there, but I’d like to know what we’re dealing with exactly.”

“Which is what?” the man in the chair piped in. He never heard the answer, though, because as Bruce approached him to answer, the man shifted into a short, bald, angry scientist.

“Open,” a Russian commanded. The Winter Soldier opened his mouth immediately and a guard was shoved in roughly. His eyes frantically darted around the room as they put the apparatus around his head.

The pain from previous experiences rose to his conscious mind and he remembered this part, every time. The feeling of his mind, his brain, everything he was thinking just being ripped apart at its most basic form. 

“Begin,” the voice said.

But the shock never came. Instead, he blinked and was staring into wide dark eyes, his own frantically shooting around the room, taking in as much of his surroundings as he could. He was leaning up on the gurney, his metal arm propping himself up, his other gripping Clara’s shoulder.

“Hey,” she was saying, her hand cupping his face. “You’re okay here. Promise.”

“I remembered,” he managed, gasping for air.

Clara’s lips turned up, but she still had a professional air about her. “Remembered what?”

He let her go and simultaneously pulled out of her grasp, swinging his legs so that he was sitting on the edge of the gurney. “I—they—”

Banner had stopped what he was doing and came around to stand next to Clara in front of him, arms crossed. “What kind of amnesia does he have, Dr. Maitland?”

“I can’t—they shocked me,” the soldier breathed, trying to calm his erratic heart. This wasn’t Hydra, he chanted in his head. This was not Hydra. Clara was kind and he was getting help.

The doctors exchanged a glance. “Shocked you how?” Clara asked after a second, concern coloring her features.

“After missions,” he explained, “I would be in this chair. They’d stick a mouth guard in my face and electrocute my skull with some kind of—”

“Oh, my God,” Clara breathed, shaking her head.

Bruce nodded and returned to his desk with a renewed energy. “Well, that certainly proves my theories.”

“What?”

“Shock treatment,” Clara said, watching Bruce gather equipment and papers. “It’s been used to repress bad memories.” She looked back to the Winter Soldier. “How often did you have these procedures? Do you remember that? It’s fine if you can’t.”

He shook his head slowly. “As far as I can remember, after every mission.”

“Do you remember if Hydra did it to you recently?” Bruce asked, dragging over a metal cart, various tools and papers laid out over the surface.

“A few days ago, I fought…Steve. He called me Bucky—said he knew me,” he told them. “And for a little while I remembered him—remembered falling from the train, remembered having what was left of my arm being sawed off.”

“Alright,” Bruce sighed. He pulled over a large white machine. “Ever had an X-Ray?”

“We’ll need an x-ray, just to make sure it’s just a simple dislocation and that nothing is fractured.”

The bright white walls of the lab, Clara, and Bruce. They all melted away. He was standing in front of Smaller Steve now, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched a doctor flit around his friend’s broken arm.

“Ever had an x-ray before?” the doctor asked.

“Not that I remember,” Steve answered, fidgeting.

The Doctor smiled kindly and looked at Bucky, who just shook his head. “Ok, so what’s going to happen is…”

“Hey? You alright?”

Clara’s voice brought him out of his vision. “I watched Steve get an x-ray once. The doctor explained to us how it worked.”

“So you’ll be no stranger to the process,” Bruce confirmed. “If you could lie back, I’ll set it up and in bit we’ll be able to see what’s going on.”

Clara helped him recline back, her hand lingering on his metal shoulder so that she was sure he would stay calm this time. “So you saw Steve get an x-ray? Hard to imagine the super soldier needing something like that.”

“From what I can remember, he wasn’t always a super soldier,” the Winter Soldier grunted, shifting. “He had a dislocated shoulder, I think.”

“From what he told me once,” Bruce muttered, reaching up to the top of the machine. “He used to get into fights a lot.”

“Now that’s hard to imagine,” Clara laughed.

“Alright, if you could turn your head to your left,” Bruce requested. Not demanded. “We’ll take a few images, just so that we don’t have to do this later.” Bruce walked away and Clara hopped up on a nearby stool within in eyesight.

“So,” she started conversationally, elbow on her crossed legs and her chin in her hand. “From what I saw earlier, you’ve had quite the day.”

“You’re not afraid of me. Of what I’ve done,” he noted quietly. 

“Are you afraid of what you’ve done?” she countered with practiced ease. He was silent, just simply watching her. “It’s okay to be afraid.”

“Alright, Dr. Maitland,” Bruce said, returning to the room. “If you’ll follow me, we’ll get out of the way to take some x-rays.”

Clara offered up a friendly smile. “Be right back.”

In total they had him take four or five x-rays. He didn’t mind, actually. It was a stark contrast to the way the scientists had treated him. There, he was a subject, an asset. Here—he was a patient with a problem. He was someone to be treated, not tested on. The Winter Soldier felt like a real person. For as long as his memory served, he could only remember robotically doing everything Hydra asked of him. 

Somewhere along the way, he’d let his guard down enough in his feel-good moment and fell asleep. When was the last time he’d slept? A vision of a tank flitted across his vision. It was cold. So cold. He remembered the first time they put him in there—it was the only time he’d fallen asleep in one. He had tried to pound on the glass, to escape, but he was trapped. And cold. So cold.

But he wasn’t in the chamber that he always remembered waking up in when they needed him for a mission. He was out in the snow. Cold. He reached down with his flesh hand towards a twinge in his leg and came back with a knife covered in his own blood. And suddenly it was like his body knew and just gave up. 

The Winter Soldier fell to his knees and noticed the splashing of bright red across the snow. Glancing down at himself, he brought both hands shakily to the slash across his stomach, his metal hand only adding to the mind numbingly cold sensation he felt emanating from the wound.

“We have him,” someone behind him said in Russian.

“Location confirmed,” a voice cracked—over a radio of some sort, his mind made out hazily.

He pulled his hands away from himself, amazed by the amount of blood. He bled? Like his assignments? Like his missions? His mind conjured a fuzzy memory of a man in a suit lashing out with a decorative sword he’d pulled from the way before the Winter Soldier managed to finally gun him down.

Hands grabbed him from all sides. He could hear a chopper in the distance. No, he wanted to tell them. He wanted them to stop grabbing at him. To leave him alone. He just wanted to sleep. He was so tired. So cold.

He woke up yelling in Russian, vaguely hearing a rough “let me go” echo off the walls. A brunette stood up from her stool across the room and approached him.

“Who are you?” he snapped in Russian. “Stop!”

The woman froze mid stride, eyebrows furrowing. She held up her hands innocently. “Hey, now, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“I don’t speak Russian, I’m sorry,” she told him slowly.

“Who are you?” he repeated, in English this time. Before she could answer, things were slowly coming back to him. “Connie?”

She smiled and shook her head. “You’ve mistaken me for Connie three times now,” she said, lowering her hands. But the Winter Soldier didn’t relax. “My name is Clara.”

“Where am I?” he shot off.

“You’re in Stark Tower,” she responded calmly. “You came here with me.” Did he? His head hurt. He couldn’t remember clearly. “You’ve been having memory problems and I’ve been helping you. Do you remember coming here?”

He shook his head for a second. “No.”

“Okay.” She crossed her arms slowly. “Do you remember Connie?”

“Yes.” He met her at a bar.

“Do you remember Steve? Or any of the events he was involved with you over the last few days?”

Steve. Steve. Yes, he remembered parts of Steve. Small Steve and Captain America Steve. “Yes.”

“Alright, good,” she smiled. “Do you remember getting x-rays?”

“What?” he snapped. “No.” What had they done to him while he was asleep? “Are you with Hydra?”

“No, we’re not.” Both sets of eyes snapped to the curly brown haired man walking into the room with large black x-rays in his hands.

“He’s having a moment,” Clara whispered to Bruce.

He nodded in understanding. “Well, I have the answers as to why you’re having these kinds of cognitive problems.” He pulled out a light box and spread the images out on top.

The Winter Soldier hopped off the gurney and strode over to look at the x-rays they had taken. “What the hell are those?” he muttered.

“These three are electrodes used in the shock treatments,” Bruce explained, fingers sliding along different x-rays to point out the bright white shapes that should not have been there.

“What about this one?” Clara asked grimly, pointing to a separate, smaller chip.

“That’s the one that worries me,” he sighed.

“You think Hydra is tracking me?” he demanded.

“Pretty sure.” Bruce stared at the x-rays for a second longer. “JARVIS.”

“Yes , Sir?” a disembodied voice filled the room. 

“Ask Stark to come down to the lab and to bring an EMP emitter.”

“Right away, Sir.”


	6. Chapter 6

The minute Tony walked into the room with a small box in his hand, the Winter Soldier remembered him. Clara knew it by the small, almost imperceptible twitch of his lips.

“Kinda hard to forget that one,” she muttered. Clara grinned when the corner of his mouth turned up for half a second in a genuine smirk.

“Alright, Bucksicle—”

“What?” His eyebrows pulled together in confusion at the poorly developed nickname.

“Well, Cap is ‘Capsicle,’ figured—” Tony tried to explain, but stopped when he saw the unappreciative look he was getting from a few of the others in the room. “No nicknames then. Whatever, I brought the EMP.”

“Great.” Bruce took it from Tony. “What’s the range?”

“Not far, pretty close range. It was the prototype for the suit—why?” Tony muttered, glancing up at the Winter Soldier as Bruce inspected the handheld device.

“This should short circuit the chips in your head until we can have them removed,” Bruce explained. “Ready?” He waited for a firm confirmation before he pressed the button. The lights above them flickered for a second, but more noticeably, the soldier’s metal arm fell limply to his side.

The weight of it just hanging off his shoulder unnerved him. It was heavier than his other arm by a few pounds. His eyes flicked up to Clara, who was watching him carefully, and then to Bruce, who had discarded the EMP on a nearby table.

“Something failed,” the Winter Soldier stated, trying to move the arm at his side. 

“No, it did what it was supposed to,” Tony said, a condescending hint in his voice that pressed a button in the Winter Soldier.

“I know how an EMP works,” he explained, letting a bit of anger tinge his voice. “What I mean is that my arm has certain capabilities. The sensory array in it keeps it from setting off metal detectors, but it can also emit an EMP of its own—meaning it shouldn’t be affected by one.”

“Okay, so you shorted out.” He smiled and shook his head, throwing his arms out. “I can fix that. Robotics has kinda been my thing.”

“Clara called you Iron Man,” he realized.

“I thought you didn’t remember coming here,” she murmured to him.

“It’s coming back to me,” he muttered back.

“Well, while Tony is fixing your arm, I’ll show you everything Tony has on you, see if we can’t jog your memory a bit,” she told him, flitting around the room, collecting different things.

“You should have an easier time remembering things now.” Bruce took off his glasses and ran a hand over his face. “No more little cognitive hiccups when you sleep.”

“It’s never happened before. I never slept. I was always cryogenically frozen between missions.” The room paused to stare at him for a second in surprise.

“Alright, well, follow me down to my garage in the basement and I’ll rewire your arm for you,” Tony said awkwardly after a second, offering up a smile before he spun on his heels and led them out of the room.

XXX

“Alright, so I’m not sure how much of this you remember from when we got here—” Clara began once they were down in the lower levels of Avenger’s Tower. He was seated in a modified medical chair, not unlike the one he’d had his shock treatments in. But the lack of electrical apparatus surrounding him put him at ease enough to sit still. 

Clara began pulling up the files Tony had shown them about the Winter Soldier. His flesh hand shot out and pulled the top of the laptop down a bit before he saw too many of the articles on his murderous missions.

“I remember that part,” he grumbled. “I don’t need to see it again.”

She gave him a supportive smile and gently brushed his hand away before opening the laptop back up and closing the files. “Okay, how about we explore Bucky, then?” She typed his full name into a search engine and he contained his surprise at how many related pages came up.

“Oh yeah, there’s that exhibit at the Smithsonian in DC,” she told him, clicking the link at the top of the page that took them to information about the exhibit. She glanced at him. “We can go some time, if you want.”

“I’ve been,” he muttered, distracted by the pictures of the exhibit on the page. “While you were out before we flew here. Didn’t jog my memory much.”

“Stories don’t bring back memories as strongly as familiar places, people, scents, sounds—those sorts of things.” She hesitated, jaw working to find the words to voice her next thought. “Are you sure you don’t want to speak to Steve?”

“Yes,” he said tightly. But his eyebrows had pulled together, the saddest look on his face. “Not right now. I can’t. Not after everything I’ve done.”

“None of that will matter to Steve,” Tony chuckled fondly, straddling a stool on the other side of him and pulling on work gloves. “He’s the kind of guy that sees the best in everyone.”

“Don’t I know it,” he whispered to himself, remembering the vague memories he had of Steve.

“Alright, Big Guy.” Tony motioned for him to put his arm on the armrest, which he had to manually lift it off his lap and place it there with his other hand. Tony tested its weight, picking up and dropping his wrist himself. “Damn—that’s not light. Alright. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

“Hold on,” Bucky muttered, reaching around himself to the bottom of his shoulder when the metal met the flesh of his back. “There’s a loose panel—I can’t—”

“Got it,” Tony grunted, pulling at the panel that the soldier’s fingertips could barely reach. He pursed his lips when all of the panels on his arm shifted up and flipped open. Tony’s eyes lit up at the sight and his lips pursed. “JARVIS, tell Pepper I won’t be home tonight.”

“Very well, Sir,” the AI chirped.

“I’ve seen this technology before,” Tony laughed. “It’s Russian in origin. I used the same base tech in my suits—but this is like—the iPhone 5 to my iPhone 2.” Tony was practically panting, afraid to even touch it.

“Are you gonna fix it or make out with it?” Clara asked, eyebrows raised.

Tony blinked at her. “Not sure yet, give me a minute.”

“Okay, then,” Clara said slowly, turning back to her laptop. “Before that gets pornographic, let’s go back to googling you.”

“Googling? I don’t understand,” he muttered.

“You understand how an EMP generator works, technology that’s only been around since, like, the 50s I think—but google baffles you?” Tony chuckled.

“I was taught what I needed to know—weapons and different kinds of tech I was stealing. Stuff I either had to work with or had to be able to recognize,” he explained, voice flat, emotionless, and uncaring. “I can’t tell you when I learned all of it, but I know it. I knew about laptops and the touch screen you have up in your office—though, the screen-less imaging is new.”

“Google is a search engine on the internet,” Clara explained patiently. “You type a word or phrase in and it finds pages related to that. ‘Googling’ is just a slang verb for doing a google search.”

“And with that—this shouldn’t hurt, but the metal might heat up,” Tony said. “Let me know if it bothers you.”

The Winter Soldier watched as Tony leaned over and stuck his tools into one of the opening, tweezers pulling at wires, strengthening connections. Sparks flew, flickering against the shiny metal. It felt exactly like it did every time he got upgrades. When the red-haired woman threw the small electric disruptor at his arm—it might not have worked, but it weakened a connection. And then Steve had tried to break the arm with his shield.

A finger twitched as Tony managed a reconnection. “See!” he grinned. “Same base tech.”

“Hey, you had a sister?”

The soldier turned back to the brunette woman at his side and looked at her screen. “Those are medical records.”

“Hers—her name was listed on your obituary from the 40s. She died about ten years ago.” She looked up at him and knew he was remembering something. He was looking at the laptop screen but he wasn’t seeing it.

“C’mere,” Bucky grunted, hoisting a small girl up onto his hip. 

“Bucky I wanna go, too,” she said.

“Sorry, Rebecca, you’re not old enough,” Steve told her, flicking one of her curls.

She stared at Bucky sadly. He pressed his lips together. “How about I take you to Coney Island sometime instead,” he suggested softly, knowing the six year old was going to cry soon. She nodded finally, knowing he would not be taking her dancing with him and Steve. 

“Promise?” she asked softly.

“Promise.” He kissed her forehead and she pulled his face to hers, kissing his cheek before pushing him away and jumping out of his arms.

“Alright, Big Guy,” Tony muttered, pushing his chair away a bit. “See if you can move your hand.”

The Winter Soldier blinked and balled his hand into a fist, hearing all the parts move as they should. He reached back on his own and snapped the lever back into place. All of the plates shifted down in a ripple.

“How does it feel?” Clara asked, closing the laptop.

He stood and took a few steps away from the chair before swinging his arm in a circle, whipping it into place. “Perfect,” he muttered in Russian. What the mechanic that was assigned to him always said after he was fixed up or upgraded.

“Is that good?”

The Winter Soldier turned around and offered a quick, fleeting smile. “Yes. Thank you.” Clara could see his flesh hand beginning to tremor and he shook it to keep it from shaking, shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you asked me to fix your arm,” Tony responded, cleaning up his tools.

“Not just fixing my arm—everything,” he breathed. He pointed menacingly at Clara. “You saw all the people in that hospital—there because I attacked SHIELD.” His gesture moved to Tony, who had halted his movements and was watching him now. “You—I could have killed you parents for all either of us know. And yet you fix up my arm, you and the other doctor are helping me—why?”

Clara stood up, lips pressed into a line. “Hey, I’ve worked for SHIELD, I’ve seen and heard people who have done some pretty messed up things,” Clara pressed. “No one is beyond help—that’s why I became a doctor.”

“Why don’t you say my name?” he snapped at her.

“Because you haven’t told me what you’re name is—”

“You saw my file. You know my name.”

Clara wet her lips and let out a short breath, reminding herself that this was just another moment he was having. “I know—but you haven’t told me what you want to be called.”

“I don’t know because I don’t know who I am,” he shouted.

“Okay!” Tony yelled above them. “This has really escalated quickly and it’s late. Why don’t you guys go take a shower and go to bed?” He paused. “Not together, though I do suppose it’d take the edge off a few things.”

Clara rolled her eyes and turned back to the Winter Soldier. “Why don’t we go get you a shower and some place to sleep?” He didn’t respond, his chest heaving. “You can decide what to do in the morning, but I don’t think you’ve gotten any sleep in days. I’m surprised you’re still standing.” His face softened but he still didn’t move. “I promise you, it’s medically proven that sleep can help memory function.”

She could almost see his resolve breaking in his eyes. Taking that chance, she grabbed his metal arm and pushed him towards the door. “Shower and a couple of rooms?” she asked Tony.

“Back up to the fifty-sixth floor. When you get off the elevator, turn right, first hall, last two doors on your left should have spare beds. You’ll pass locker rooms on your right,” Tony directed, going back to cleaning up his things.

“Thank you, Tony,” Clara said earnestly. “Even though—”

Tony shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”


	7. Chapter 7

Clara blinked in the darkness, unsure of what woke her up. In the dim light coming from the window she could barely make out the numbers on the clock. Was it 3:30 or 6:15? Early. That’s all she knew.

She heard something shift on the other side of the room and shot up to her elbows, squinting at the shadow in the chair. She saw the glint in the darkness and let out a loud breath.

“What are you doing in here?” she asked, falling back onto her pillows.

“If Hydra comes looking for me, I don’t want them coming after you for helping me.”

She was quiet for a second letting that sink in. She was almost too tired to slip into the professional questioning. “You really think this building isn’t safe?”

“Did you think that about SHIELD?” he muttered, half asleep as she was.

“Point for you,” she grumbled half-heartedly.

“I distrust Hydra more than you trust this place.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I am thinking more clearly now. Got a few hours of sleep.”

“Point for me.” Things were silent for a bit and she thought he’d fallen asleep in the chair, head propped up on his flesh hand. His long hair, still wet from the shower she forced him to take, hung limply in his face. “Hey,” she murmured. “Talk to Steve.”

“No.”

“Go back to your room,” she drawled sleepily.

“Not gonna let you be my fault.”

“Whatever. Don’t care.” She pulled the blankets up above her head. “I’m going sleeping.”

XXX

The second time she woke up, the Winter Soldier was still asleep in the chair in the corner. Out cold. She managed to sneak out of the bed and into the hall, closing the door as far as she dared. “Some assassin. Assassin—maybe. Ninja? No.” She wandered down the hall, still in her jeans and t-shirt from the previous day, barefoot.

It was still a weekday, but there was no one on the floor she was on. It was completely silent, seemingly empty. She’d heard both Bruce and Tony do it, but she was hesitant to try. “Uhm, JARVIS?”

“Yes, Dr. Maitland?” The AI’s voice echoed gently in the empty hall, and she continued down and away from the sleeping soldier.

“Do you know where Tony Stark is?”

“Mr. Stark is not in the tower. He went home at eight-sixteen this morning.”

“Right,” she sighed. “Is Dr. Banner still in the building?”

“Dr. Banner is with Steve Rogers down in the Cafeteria.”

Clara’s blood ran cold and she stared up at the ceiling, running a hand through her hair. “Oh—Uh, JARVIS, where’s the cafeteria?”

“Second floor, directly across from the elevators, Dr. Maitland.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, taking off in a sprint for the elevators around the corner. “JARVIS, let me know when…my friend wakes up.”

“Yes, Dr. Maitland.”

“Come on, come on.” She pressed jammed all the down buttons on the three elevators, jumping into the one that opened first. Eighty-six floors, the chances of him deciding to go down to the second were slim. But then again, with how his life had turned out, unlikely chances seemed to happen to him a lot.

Once the elevator doors got out of her way she shot across the hallway and pushed open one of the cafeteria’s swinging doors. It was lighter than she expected and it flew open, slamming into the wall, and she stumbled to a stop, eyes searching the crowded room for Dr. Banner and Steve.

They were sitting in a corner near the doors. The other employees had left the tables around them empty.

Walking up to them, she was aware she was being stared at, but if she didn’t stop this, what could happen would be more than a scene. “You can’t be here,” she panted, pointing at Steve.

“I’m sorry?” He looked up at her, confused.

“Steve, this is Dr. Maitland,” Bruce introduced. “She was the head of the medical department at SHIELD.”

“And I was a psychiatrist before that,” she added. “And I’m working with—with your friend and you can’t see him.”

“Tony called me and told me he was here,” Steve explained slowly, his demeanor shifting quickly towards defensive, eyebrows pulling together in the wake of seriousness.

“Of course he did,” she groaned. “But as his current doctor, I’m telling you, you can’t see him until he wants to see you.”

“He doesn’t remember me,” Steve tried. 

Clara pulled out a chair and sat down. “He remembers you enough to know he’s not ready to see you yet.”

Steve looked hurt. “Why not?”

“As his doctor, I’m telling you that you can’t see him until he’s ready,” she tried to explain quickly. “But as his friend, trust me, I’m going to try everything I can to get him to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Because we’ve been over Hydra’s files—we’ve been over everything we can find about him.”

“No, I mean why are you helping him?” Steve asked, voice strong, face intimidating. “He’s killed dozens of people. If you’ve ready Hydra’s files, then you know who he is and what he’s done—what he did just days ago.”

She flinched under his gaze, but answered anyways. “One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. He was just a freedom fighter for the wrong side.”

“Easy to say when you’ve never fought in a war,” Steve said, standing.

“Can you tell me that the Nazis’—mostly innocent people drafted into a war—didn’t view you as a terrorist? A mass murderer of their people?”

“Doctor—”

“Clara.”

Steve nodded once. “Clara. I can’t give up on him.”

“I’m not asking you to,” she said with a smile. “Just give me—” she bit her lip, trying to measure out the number of days the procedure would take to remove the implants in his head. “—Give me two weeks.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. “Two weeks?”

“He has some invasive technology in his head that we need to remove,” Bruce interjected. “It’ll take a few days for him to completely recover from that.”

“I think they’re what’s making it hard for him to remember—”

“Dr. Maitland.” JARVIS’s voice echoed loudly in the cafeteria, silencing everyone. She jumped at the sound. “Your…friend is awake.”

“Thank you, JARVIS,” she replied. “Please. Just two weeks.”

Steve took a deep breath, considering this. He looked to Banner.

“Steve, I’ll be here with them the whole time. If you don’t trust her, trust me. I’m sure the other guy can handle any situation that could arise,” Banner assured him.

Finally, Steve nodded. “Two weeks. I’ll be back in two weeks.” He slid a folder towards Clara. “I made a copy. A friend gave it to me when I was released from the hospital. I was going to give it to Banner, but I think it’ll serve its purpose better with you. It’s Hydra’s notes on the Winter Soldier program. Straight from Russia.”

“And I’ve got a translator upstairs,” Clara breathed with a grin. “Thank you. I’ll have Dr. Banner or Mr. Stark call you if anything changes.”

She took off again for the elevators, manila folder clutched to her chest. When the doors opened, she was looking into the face of one confused man. “Get back in the elevator,” she commanded, pushing against him with her whole weight. They both slammed against the back of the elevator causing it to shake, and she jammed her finger into a high numbered button. Anything to get them moving up.

Immediately she pulled away from him when she realized her hasty actions could have caused a reaction. But although his pale eyes were wild and slightly unfocused, he seemed otherwise calm.

“What’s going on?” he demanded. “Is Hydra here?”

“No, no, no,” she breathed, laughing. “Steve was in the cafeteria.” The Winter Soldier went rigid. “Don’t worry, I asked him to leave for the time being. I told him that, as your doctor, I couldn’t recommend him coming to see you yet. Not until you give the okay.”

She heard him release a breath. “Thank you.”

“It’s fine,” she waved him away, “he understood.” With more time, the rushing adrenaline fading, she pushed the actual floor they needed to take them back to their rooms.

The soldier fall back against the wall of the elevator, pushing his hair behind his ears to keep it out of his face. Clara looked down at the file in her hands, unable to read any of the words on the cover. She held it out to him.

“What’s this?” He took the file from her and read the cover. “What is this? Where did you get it?”

“Steve had it. He was going to give it to Dr. Banner. He decided to give it to me instead when I explained I’m working with you.”

“How did Steve know I was here?”

“Tony called him.” She placed both hands on his arms when he turned to stone, eyebrows pulling down, eyes turning menacing. “Hey,” she snapped. “He was just trying to be a friend to Steve. Don’t take it out on him. He didn’t mean to cause harm.”

He watched her for a second, relaxing when the elevator dinged. “Right,” he nodded.

“Shall we go dig through your Russian biography then?” she asked him with a grin and a flourish, leading him out of the elevator and back to one of the rooms.


	8. Chapter 8

“Arnim Zola seems to have been the one who actually carried out the procedure on you,” Clara murmured, flipping through the files covered in Russian. They sat on the floor with their backs against the door, pages and pages of information spread out on the floor in front of them.

Clara had a notebook balanced on one knee that she had been writing down the key notes in from the files as Bucky translated them. He read most of them aloud to her, but there were some he had put aside, claiming they were unimportant.

“But who ordered it,” he muttered, eyes scanning another page. “This one is notes about my mental stability in the beginning.” He put it in the pile of not-important-papers and picked up another.

“Well, we know it was Hydra.”

“Yeah, but I want a name,” he growled. “I want to know where their base is.”

“From the pattern the papers were in the file—newer stuff on top, older stuff on the bottom.” Clara pulled the folder off his lap and flipped to the back page, letting out a shuddering gasp as the folder slipped through her fingers.

“What?” The Winter Soldier took everything back and flipped to the last pages until he saw what she had seen.

“Sorry,” she muttered, “Just took me by surprise.”

He stared down emotionlessly at the picture stapled to the page. It was an old photo, quality-wise. It was of him, of course, but not as he was presently. He looked like he should have been dead. And falling 300 feet—he rightfully should have been. But the photo in his hand proved that Hydra went to some lengths to keep their asset from dying.

In the photo, he was lying on a gurney, the sheet covering his lower half bloodied on the left side where half his arm lay mutilated. “I have these...strands of memories. Fragments.”

Clara shook her head, “you don’t have to—”

“I have memories of going in and out of consciousness from the time Hydra found me, lying in the snow until right before the procedure.” She watched as he looked over the page. “They brought me to a small base on the border of Belgium.”

“You’re sure?” She leaned over and looked at the words that made no sense to her as if they would rearrange themselves into something she could read.

He pointed to a line of text. “That’s a Belgian address.”

“Can you read it out to me?” she asked quietly, reading her pen over her paper. She wrote it down exactly as he said it and then looked back up at him. He ran a tongue between his lips and then pressed them together. “You can’t go there.”

The Winter Soldier’s eyes snapped up to hers. “Why not?” he demanded.

Clara leaned away from his aggressive change in attitude and hastily explained. “I really want them to remove the pieces in your head first.” He stayed silent, waiting. “It’s been who knows how many years since you’ve been there—whatever is there is not going anywhere for the time being. Just give me two weeks. By then you should be completely free from Hydra.”

His glare softened and he moved the paper to a different stack in front of them, laying it out away from the rest. “Alright.”

“How much of the file is left?” she asked, slightly distracted by re-reading her notes.

“Not much. The rest looks like more psychological evaluations and general notes on the shock treatments and conditioning,” he sighed. “I can translate those word for word for you later, if you want—they’ll probably make more sense to you than me, anyways. None of this is about what I’ve done.”

“Do you really want to read that file if it exists?” Clara asked softly.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Don’t do that to yourself,” she advised, stretching out her legs and leaning heavily back against the door. “Don’t make tallies, don’t give them a name. Don’t forget that it happened, but don’t let it keep you from moving on.”

“I’ve killed people, Clara.”

“So have a lot of field agents,” she countered. “So do soldiers in the war. But you can’t let it hold you back from making things right, from atoning.”

“The missions I remember—can I really move on from that?” he barely whispered. “Can I really atone for all that blood?”

“Only if you let yourself.”

Someone tried to push open the door, but with the two sitting against it, it just painfully bumped into their backs. Clara scooted away from the door, the Winter Soldier reaching up to open it. 

“Why are you guys sitting on the floor?” Tony asked. A small, misguided smirk made its way onto his face and while it went completely over the Winter Soldier’s head, Clara was used to that kind of facial expression and glared.

“What do you need, Stark?”

He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms. “Bruce and I wanted to discuss the procedure—but if you’re both busy.” The Winter Soldier stood swiftly and reached down with his flesh hand to help Clara off the floor. Tony’s eyes examined the paper scattered around the room. “What were you two looking at in here, anyways?”

Clara stepped out into the hallway and slapped him across the face. “That’s for calling Steve when I specifically told you not to.”

Tony rubbed his cheek and moved so the Winter Soldier could follow them into the hall, closing the door behind him. “Well, you didn’t specifically tell me not to. In fact, if memory serves, you just said we’d take it slow.”

“Stark,” Clara said, warning him.

“Dr. Maitland, if the roles had been reversed, if it had been me and Rhodey, I would want to know where my best friend was after I’d found out he wasn’t actually dead,” Tony explained, walking down the hall towards the elevators. “I was doing Cap a favor.”

“But it wasn’t you and Rhodey,” Clara snapped, following him. “It was him and Steve. And he expressed that he didn’t want Steve to know he was here.”

“No, not what was expressed,” Tony smirked, pressing the button to call the elevator. He glanced over at the other man and shrugged. “He said he didn’t want to talk to Cap, and from what Bruce told me, he didn’t.”

“You’re such a wanker sometimes,” Clara muttered.

“Steve and I are not friends,” the soldier pressed. 

“Maybe, but at least Cap has some peace of mind knowing you’re with the Avengers and not with Hydra,” Tony stated flatly, turning his back on them.

Something in him deflated as he understood Tony’s intentions. He reasoned with the man in his head—something he felt like he hadn’t done in a while. Internally, he let it go, deciding not to let it bother him.

They all filed into Tony’s office on one of the upper floors and filled in the three chairs in front of the desk, which Tony took his seat on the other side.

“So—I’m going to recommend we do this as soon as possible,” Banner started. He glanced over at the soldier, then back to Tony. “We might have shorted out anything Hydra is using to track him, but there’s no way to tell for sure unless we remove and destroy the material.”

The Winter Soldier opened his mouth to speak, but Tony cut him off. “I’ve got military grade satellites and even my own tracking everything and everyone from SHIELD and known Hydra facilities,” he assured. “No one is getting near this tower without clearance.”

“Any idea where Clint and Natasha are?” Bruce asked—whether he was trying to make a point to Tony or not wasn’t clear.

“Clint went off the grid two days ago in Spain. I can guarantee Romanoff went to rendezvous with him somewhere in Europe,” Tony muttered, clicking away at his computer before spinning the monitor towards the others. “This is the guy I recommend for the procedure. He’s brilliant, quick, and he was the one who got the shrapnel out of my body. He’ll stay quiet.”

“He has to be sworn to secrecy,” Clara pressed. 

“How do we know he’s not Hydra?” the Winter Soldier questioned. 

“We don’t,” Bruce muttered. “But with the three of us in the same room, he’ll only be able to do what we tell him—nothing more, and nothing less.”

The Winter Soldier slid down in his seat a bit, completely contrasting with the soldier-esque postured he’d harbored for the last day or two. “If you’re not completely sure he’s not Hydra, I don’t want it done.” He started to bounce his leg and crossed his arms, looking each of them in the eye. “If he is Hydra, removing the chips will be pointless—they’ll know where I am.”

“If we don’t, Hydra might find you anyways,” Clara explained. She put a hand on his knee to keep it from bouncing. “That’s a nervous habit associated with anxiety.”

“Can you blame him?” Bruce grumbled.

Tony took a deep breath. “I trust this guy. I can have him here in two days.” Tony paused and Clara could see him actually thinking about his words before he said anything. “Get a haircut, a new set of clothes. We’ll come up with an alias—say you’re a SHIELD agent with experimental implants. Your doctor died in the collapse of the SHIELD base, so you need the pieces removed.”

“There’s really no other choice,” Clara whispered to him. “But it’s still your choice.”

“My choice,” he murmured to himself. He weighed the options heavily in his mind. On one hand, he could run—none of these people would be hurt. He could hunt down Hydra on his own. A tempting choice, he realized.

On the other hand, he could wait, have the tech removed, and then go hunt down Hydra, ensuring he wasn’t traceable. But it would put Clara at risk, he decided, looking up at her. She had been so kind to him with no motivation at all. What was she getting out of this? It had to go beyond her claims of just wanting to help him.

She could be Hydra.

Okay, but even if she wasn’t, when she found out, in detail, all the things the Winter Soldier had done, she wouldn’t want to help him any longer.

“Alright,” he finally conceded. “How long will recovery take?”

“We estimate a week,” Bruce said, standing.

“Alright, for now, why don’t you guys go get something to eat—maybe a haircut and some clothes?” Tony suggested, pushing a credit card towards them. “Just don’t go too crazy.” He winked at Clara and she rolled her eyes, taking the plastic card and pocketing it.

“I’m not sure me leaving this tower is a good idea,” the Winter Soldier muttered.

“Hydra’s not gonna be able to find you—the city is still a bit chaotic from the destruction—no one will think twice,” Clara said.

“I’m not worried about me—”

Bruce let out a dry laugh. “Kid, remind me to show you what I did to Harlem once,” he muttered as he left. “You’re not the only one with a history.”

“C’mon,” Clara sighed, gesturing for the soldier to follow her. 

The Winter Soldier stood, but didn’t follow the dark haired girl to the door. He stared down at Tony. “How do I know you’re not Hydra?”

“You don’t,” Tony replied slowly. “But guess what, Soldier—you were.”

The Winter Soldier’s jaw clenched at the truth in Tony’s words.

“Enough,” Clara hissed, stepping between them. “We’ll talk about it later—for now, let’s go find something to eat—according to that file, Hydra fed you a bland diet when they weren’t feeding you intravenously. You’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

“Try Schwarma,” Tony suggested as she closed his office door behind them.


	9. Chapter 9

“Someone is going to recognize the arm,” the Winter Soldier grumbled as Clara sat on the bed, pulling on her shoes.

She just tossed him the jean jacket he’d worn before. “It’ll be alright. Just wear that to cover the star. Stick your hand in your pocket if it bothers you that much, but I honestly don’t think it’s that recognizable.”

He pushed his arms into the sleeves. “What do you mean?”

“News footage for the….attack on the bridge was limited. They didn’t catch any clear footage of the actual fight—only blurry shots of a man with a mask, goggles, and a metal arm. And you were gone by the time the big news chopper got there.”

“You’re sure?” He followed her out of the room and down towards the bottom of the building. 

“Positive. I was watching the news loop at the hospital before I met you, and I didn’t recognize it,” she said. They were silent walking out to the street. “So let’s go get you a couple changes of clothes, a haircut, and it’s still early so we can get a late lunch. Sound okay with you?”

“It’s fine.”

Clara hailed a taxi and they were both silent as it took them to the location she had directed the driver towards. It was a comfortable silence. One the Winter Soldier made no effort to fill. He was immensely confused. He didn’t know what to do, and the possibilities swam in circles in his head.

He wasn’t used to having so many decisions to make for himself. They were typically made for him, in most of the memories he had. From being forced into a war, to being captured by Hydra.

Who was he?

“So, did you guys have stores like this back in the 40s?” Clara asked once they got into the large department store.

“Something like it,” he mumbled, looking around.

“Men’s is this way.”

He followed Clara down an aisle and then into rows and rows of racks. She stopped in front of shelves on a far wall and looked down at his waist. “Hm—pant sizes have probably changed in the last 70 years—you don’t happen to know what size those are?” He shook his head and she held up a pair to his waist, and then picked out a couple of different sizes. “Go try these on in the fitting rooms to your left. I’m sure you know how to do that much.” His eyebrows lifted, lips twitching. “I’ll look for some shirts.”

Moments later he came out to find her across the aisle, clothing draped over her arm. “Too big,” he said, holding up one size, holding up the next size down, “too small.” She took the pair that was too big and checked the size.

“We’ll get like three of these. We’ll pick up a belt, too.” She passed over a bundle of hangers. “Try these on?”

He nodded and took her armload, heading back towards the dressing rooms. A major part of him recognized that she was making decisions for him, just like Hydra had done. And it nagged at him. But the more logical part, a part that was growing more and more prominent, rationalized that it was insignificant and they just needed to get it done.

He hung the shirts on the wall and couldn’t stop the small smile from making itself present. She had picked out button ups. He had flashes of himself and Small Steve, from memories he had visited to things he’d never seen before. He and Steve were always in button-down shirts and slacks.

“Steve always wears these kinds of shirts when he’s not battle-ready, so I figure it was because they’re the most familiar to him,” Clara explained when he’d returned, hanging back up the shirts that didn’t fit. “Alright. We’ve got three sets of clothes and I picked out a belt for you. Boxers or briefs?”

The Winter Soldier blinked. “What?”

“Underwear. Boxers or briefs?” she asked again. His eyebrows rose, but he didn’t respond. “What are you wearing right now?” Again, silence, and then a small smile spread slowly across her face. “Are you wearing anything right now?”

He was suddenly fidgety like he was back at the tower.

She grinned. “I’ll let one of the boys help you out with that later. We need to pay and get going. You alright with all this?”

His jaw clenched and unclenched, but he nodded. “Yeah. It’s fine. It’s just clothing.”

“Alright, well, let’s go pay and then we’ll get your hair cut.”

He watched as Clara grinned and dumped the clothes onto the counter, Stark’s card ready in her hands. He could feel the cashier’s eyes on him and pushed his left hand into his pocket, right hand running through his hair to get it out of his face.

The Winter Soldier stood there, feeling awkward and out of place. A couple of days ago he’d been chaos incarnate in the streets. Today, he was buying clothing and getting a haircut. How had things changed so drastically in such a short amount of time?

Then again, in his life, this was not the first time things had done a one-eighty on him. The moment at the top of his list: getting drafted. Or maybe it was falling off a train to his not-really-death.

“Hello,” Clara chirped as she walked past the soldier holding the door to the hair salon open for her. The shop was mostly empty, save for a man in his mid-thirties sitting behind a computer to their left. He looked up at Clara and smiled. 

“Welcome, I’m Travis,” he grinned, standing up. “What can I do for you this afternoon?”

The Winter Soldier jammed his left hand further into his pocket self-consciously as Clara explained that he was in need of a haircut. “Nothing special,” Clara was telling him. “Just shorter.”

“Alright, follow me, Hun.” Jacob led him to a chair and motioned for him to sit. “Can you take off your jacket?” The Winter Soldier gave Clara a look, but complied. Travis lifted an eyebrow, but he didn’t stare, just threw a cover over his shoulders. “So what brings you in to get a haircut today?”

“He’s having surgery in a few days,” Clara explained softly. The soldier kept quiet and wondered how much she was going to tell this stranger. He was beginning to wish he’d just told her he would cut it himself.

“Well, that’s unfortunate.” Jacob gently tipped the Winter Solder’s head back and ran his fingers gently through the tangles. “When was the last time you got it cut, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Don’t remember. 1940-something,” he mumbled sarcastically. He felt Clara whack his flesh arm.

“He’s kidding,” she excused stiffly.

Travis laughed.

XXX

“Finally, let’s go get lunch,” Clara announced as she hailed down another cab. She looked over to the Winter Soldier, his fingers running through his much shorter hair. She offered up a small, reassuring smile. “It looks good short. I mean, it looked nice long, but this suits you, too.”

“I remember getting it cut right before I left for Europe,” he told her as they got into the cab. 

“Oh yeah? Did you remember this in there?” She gestured back to the salon.

“In the chair. It wasn’t like the others, though,” he explained quietly. “It wasn’t like it replayed in my head—I just realized that I had done this before and when I thought about it, I could replay it in my head.”

“Totally normal,” she assured him after giving the driver instructions. “Getting back memories after having amnesia of any form is always different for everyone.”

“How long could it take?” he asked, voice barely audible. He kept his eyes away from her and out over the city.

“It varies,” she responded sadly. “It’s not what you’re going to want to hear, but you may never get all of your memories back. Especially not with the way they were forcefully repressed.”

“I just want to know who I am.”

“I know,” she sighed. “It’s not going to happen in a week, I can assure you. But we’ll figure it out.”

He glanced at her. “Thank you.”

“It’s what I do,” she shrugged.

The taxi pulled to the curb a few minutes later and they stepped out, the soldier looking up at the strip of buildings in front of him. He could see the tower not far away to his left—they were within walking distance of it.

“What are we doing here?”

Clara grinned and nudging him towards a door. “New York Style pizza,” she announced. “I figured there had to have been pizza in the 40s—and who doesn’t like pizza?” He didn’t share her enthusiasm right away and he saw her deflate just a bit, but her smile never faltered. “It’s good. I promise.”

“I’m trusting you,” he said finally, following her into the tiny restaurant. 

Once he had the pizza in his hands, a sense of familiarity took over and he immediately folded it in half without thinking, and took a bite.

“Well, you are from Brooklyn,” she giggled, cutting hers to pieces.

“That’s how we do it here,” he stated firmly with a smirk.

Clara smiled behind her napkin. He may not have noticed himself, but he was changing. She knew the changes would slow down as time went on, but he was slowly finding himself without realizing it. His expressions, his words—all unique to him.

But without someone who knew Bucky, who knew if he was reverting to his old self, or forging a new one. Either way—it was better than being the assassin phantom.

“What if we spent to day tomorrow traveling around New York?” she asked suddenly, placing her napkin on the table next to her empty plate. He’d finished his third slice long before she’d finished her second.

“What?”

“Well, since you’re from Brooklyn, we can visit there,” she offered. “Maybe visit some of the places Bucky has seen—of course, we don’t have to. It’s completely up to you.”

“Completely up to me,” he muttered to himself. To Clara, he said louder, “Are you doing that on purpose?”

“You have to be more specific.”

“Giving me options—letting me decide. Are you doing that on purpose?” he demanded quietly.

“Kind of,” she said. “I mean, part of it is, in the back of my head, I know Hydra didn’t care what you wanted and disregarded any opinions you might have had, but part of it is human decency to ask what you want.”

His eyes watched her carefully, eyebrows pulling together in that way that made him look lost and sad. He ran his tongue between his lips and pushed his empty plate further away from him. “Can we go back to the tower?”

Clara pulled out Stark’s credit card and stood up, collecting their bags. “We sure can.”


	10. Chapter 10

Bucky fought the men holding him down to the chair. They grunted, speaking to one another in presumably German. A third soldier was at his thrashing legs, tying them down. It was his last chance to get away. Once he was tied down, Bucky knew that was it—he was a dead man.

With his legs secured, the soldier moved to his wrists, getting one attached easily. Bucky tried to resist, to scream, to break out of the bindings, but it was no use.

“It is useless,” a heavily accented voice said to him. “You are going nowhere for the moment, and no one is coming for you.”

“You don’t know that,” he spat at the short, fat man, even though Bucky knew full well that there was no rescue coming. Not here. The risks were too high to rescue them.

“You are a stubborn one,” the man grinned, brandishing a needle. “I have high hopes for you, Sergeant Barnes,”

“What the hell is that?” he demanded as the needle neared his arm.

“Just a mild anesthetic before we give you the serum,” he explained as he pushed the needle into Bucky’s arm. 

“What are you doing?” Bucky all but shouted at him as he began to walk to the other side of the room. 

“Nothing you need to worry about right now.” The man turned to one of the soldiers that had helped strap him in and spoke rapidly in another language.

“What the hell is going on, you bastard,” Bucky panted, still pulling at the restraints.

“I will give you two injections now, and two more later,” the fat man sneered, pushing one needle into his arm, passing the second needle to an aid that did the same thing to his other arm. Immediately a burning sensation made its way up his arms and to his chest. He felt his fingers go numb and his breathing turned erratic, fear pumping adrenaline through him.

“What the hell are you doing to me?” he shouted, convulsing, trying to escape the sudden mind-numbing pain overtaking his senses. His vision was fuzzy and he could no longer see the short, fat scientist or his Nazi friends.

Bucky felt a leather strap being shoved into his mouth. “We are going to wipe your mind clean. You are going to help us bring in a new era—a better future for the world.”

“No,” Bucky gasped around leather as a metal contraption was placed on his head. 

Shortly after a German command, Bucky felt all of the muscles in his neck, shoulders, and back spasm. The pain was unbelievable—like nothing he’d ever felt. Thoughts bounced around his head and then out of reach. He couldn’t think straight.

Where was he?

He couldn’t remember.

A blond haired boy shot across his vision and he struggled to remember his name.

Steve?

Yes, Steve. Bucky clung to that thought. Steve. Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers was his best friend. Him. He was Bucky Barnes.

The pain shut off instantly, but he clung to the thought. The soldiers left the room, the scientist grinning and leaving himself.

“I’ll be back soon.”

James. “James Buchanan Barnes,” he began to chant out loud, softly. “Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. 32557.” That’s who he was. He was a name, and a number in the army. “James Buchanan Barnes. 32557.”

Bucky wasn’t sure how long he lay there, muttering to himself, unable to think of anything else. His whole body ached and he couldn’t find the energy to fight the restraints anymore. No one was coming for him.

He didn’t notice the gunfire in the background, but he heard the scientist return, his frantic steps echoing down the hall and in the room. He was gathering things from the counter top and shoving it all into a bag.

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes—”

“We will meet again,” the man muttered, pushing another needle into his arm. “And I will be able to complete my work then. You shall be a wonderful asset.”

The man took off out the door, but Bucky continued his chant. “James Buchanan Barnes. 32557.”

A new set of footprints echoed down the hall. This set was heavier—a larger person. They stepped into the room, but Bucky continued his chant, his thoughts becoming no more organized than they had been.

“Bucky,” someone breathed between puffs of air. “Oh, my god…” Bucky felt his ankles fall free from the restraints.

He let his head fall to the side to try and see who was there, but his vision was still fuzzy—he could make out the outline and vague shadows of a soldier. “Whossat?” he slurred.

“It’s me,” the person replied quietly, releasing his wrists. “It’s Steve.”

“Steve,” he smiled recognizing the name. “Steve.” Steve Rogers.

“Yeah, c’mon.” Steve pulled Bucky up and let him slide off the gurney. He held Bucky upright and let him catch his breath and get a bit of his bearings. “I thought you were dead.”

Bucky looked him over, wondering what exactly that short, fat man had done to him. Did he alter his memories? Was this really Steve? “I thought you were smaller,” he managed.

A loud snap and machine gunfire drew Steve’s attention away from Bucky. 

With an uneven gasp, the Soldier’s eyes flew open and he pushed against the hard surface holding him up, nearly falling to the floor when the stool he’d been sitting on tipped and fell over.

Clara’s head snapped up to the sudden noise. “You alright?” He stood stone still, looking around the room. “Do you know where you are?”

“Vaguely.” He forced himself to relax and kneaded his temples. “A tower. In New York City. We had pizza.” His fingers slid back and touched his hair. “And a haircut.”

Clara smiled and turned back to her work. “Right. We’re in Stark Tower. We went out shopping, got some lunch. We came back and you fell asleep.”

The soldier nodded slowly. “Nothing happened.”

“Nope,” Clara confirmed. “Stark and Dr. Banner came in to collect a few of his notes, but otherwise I’ve been sitting here going through some notes. You can go back to your room and sleep, if you want.”

“I can’t.”

Clara stopped working at glanced up at him. “Why not? You only got about an hour and a half of sleep here. You must still be tired.” He didn’t respond, only righted the stool against the wall and took his seat, leaning onto an empty metal lab table with his left arm. “Did you dream just now?”

“It wasn’t a dream,” he muttered after a moment. “At least I don’t think it was. How do I know what’s a dream and what’s a memory?”

“That’s hard to say. There are four stages of sleep. Dreams occur in the latter stages. During these stages, the limbic system is a bit active. Psychologists believe dreams are just the brain’s way of trying to make sense of this activity,” Clara explained, leaning against her desk casually, pen tapping the desk absently as she looked to the ceiling in thought. “As for whether or not a dream is a memory—you’d need a second person to confirm it. Care to talk about it?”

The Winter Soldier gazed at her tiredly. “Did you ever visit the exhibit in the Smithsonian?”

“No, I’ve never been there personally, but I know a bit of the information that’s there.”

“Captain America’s first mission.”

Clara raised a single eyebrow and leaned into her palm. “Saving the men of the 107th. That was in your file.”

“I know how Bucky survived the fall.” Clara’s face smoothed out at those words, but she held her tongue until he was finished explaining. “Hydra was experimenting on him. Steve interrupted the procedure. They had tried the electroshock therapy but it hadn’t taken hold yet, he still remembered Steve.”

“So you remember being saved by Steve during the war,” Clara clarified.

“I remember being tortured during the war,” he corrected a bit aggressively. 

“Okay,” Clara nodded. “Do you feel like you are figuring out who ‘you’ are?”

His eyes danced around the room suddenly, that sad look he’d taken to filling his features. “I don’t know.”

“The thing that worries me is how you referred to the person in that memory as ‘Bucky.’ I want to caution you against labeling and defining these personalities. If you give each personality in your head a name, then they are essentially different people. I know it’s a defense mechanism to pretend these are separate people.”

“But they are,” he argued. 

Clara gave him a sad smile and walked over to him. “No, they are both you. They come from here,” she murmured, pointing to his chest before moving it to his temple, “and here. You’re still Bucky, but the Winter Soldier is still a part of you, too. What you did—while not your fault—still happened. You have to understand that and forgive yourself.” She hopped up onto the table, but kept her eyes on him. “You have to move on and find a way to atone. But, while it’s common to create another persona to help you cope with what happened, it’s not healthy. That’s called schizophrenia and is a dangerous thing.”

“How can I do that?” he asked her. “How do I atone for two dozen murders?”

“Live and help people,” she suggested easily. “Help more people than you’ve hurt.”

“So that the good outweighs the bad.” He tilted his head down to his lap and ran his flesh hand through his hair, gently tugging on the short ends. “How can I be Bucky if I don’t know who he is?”

“A person changes constantly. We evolve over time and become new people every day,” she pressed. “I’m not the same Clara I was ten years ago, or even the same Clara I was last week.”

He took a deep breath and stood. “I think…I was a slightly bitter person during the war.”

Clara smiled and watched him walk towards the table she had been working at, but kept her seat on the table. “Yeah?”

“While I was lying there, and the scientist was talking to me, telling me what an asset I’d be, I remember thinking the army wasn’t coming.” He found it slightly odd and out of place to think of Bucky as himself, but he found himself trusting Clara’s advice even though he’d only known her a couple of days. He was getting to trusting, he decided.

“Why don’t you keep a diary or a journal?” Clara suggested, sliding off the counter. She hesitated when he looked up at her. “My—my grandmother did. I read them when she passed away. They were really interesting. She wrote in one that it helped her sort her thoughts. One particular occasion she said it helped her begin to move on.”

He didn’t answer her right away, instead, he looked back to her work, flipping through the pages of psychological terms and phrases he couldn’t decipher. “I thought all this was in Russian.”

“It was. Stark came in while I was working on the other notes and he ran them through a computer. JARVIS translated them for me. Took about an hour. I’ve only just started going through them.”

“What do they say?” He almost didn’t want to ask, and her face turned grim when he did.

“Well,” she sighed, leaning past him to grab her notebook. She flipped back a few pages and took a breath. “Basically, they tried out different levels of electroshock therapy before they found one strong enough to overpower the serum they gave you.”

“What does the electroshock do?” he demanded. “How did a few hundred volts of electricity erase so many of my memories?”

“Try a few thousand volts,” she corrected. “And they didn’t erase them—the electricity just activated a defense mechanism in your brain that repressed the memories. It’s a way for the brain to cope with the trauma. They’re all still there, it’s just that now the brain is having trouble accessing them.” She looked back down at her notes. “Once they found the right voltage for that, it was all conditioning. You’ve got three parts of a personality--the conscious part was more or less wiped clean, the subconscious stuff was what was still going strong—your morals. They manipulated that. The unconscious is where they repressed the memories to.”

“They fed me lies?” His eyes found hers. He was angry—rightfully.

“More like twisted truths. Probably told you your missions were for the greater good.”

A more recent memory bubbled to the surface of his mind.

“The man on the bridge, who was he?” he had asked.

“You met him earlier this week on another assignment.” The man—Pierce, he knew now—had sat down on a stool in front of him so that they were eye level.

The Winter Soldier had glanced back at his superior. “I knew him.”

“Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century. And I need you to do it one more time,” Pierce explained. “Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning we’re giving it a push. But you don’t do your part—I can’t do mine. And Hydra can’t give the world the freedom it deserves.”

He wanted to give the world freedom, just like he was being asked. “But I knew him.” And he wanted to know why.

He blinked and looked at Clara. “They told me I was helping.”

“And you probably believed it wholeheartedly. Which is why it’s not your fault.”

“I was brainwashed?” he demanded, flipping through the Russian papers. “Does it say who dealt with it?”

She placed a hand on top of the papers to keep him from frantically searching for names. “It’s not brainwashing in the science fictional sense. There’s more psychology to it. But you can call it that.”

“Does it say who did this to me?” he demanded, voice low and dangerous.

Her face smoothed out again to an expressionless poker face and her head cocked slightly. “First off, you will not be speaking to me like that if you want answers from me,” she told him. “I don’t demand respect, but I’m here to help you.” Her voice softened suddenly. “Secondly, no. There are no names in any of those papers as far as I can tell.”

He looked down at her and realized how close they were. “Sorry,” he muttered, pulling back away from her work.

“It’s alright. I’m not under the illusions you’re not moody,” she chuckled, searching through her papers for a second notebook. “Women have changed since the 40s. Anyways, here.” She pulled a few pages out of the notebook, and stuck a pen in the spine. “Use this as your journal for now.”

He took it from her gently. “Thanks.”

“Go get some sleep. It’ll help with the mood swings and your memory. Sleep heals.”

He silently walked to the door and heard her getting back to her work. “Thank you, Clara.”

“Oh, yeah,” she called to him when he reached the door. “Figure out what you want to be called. No rush, just, we need something to call you.”

He didn’t respond. He just left the room quickly, making his way to his room. Needing to be alone was his top priority. He hadn’t meant to lose control, but he had, and his whole being was filled with regret. A feeling he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

He welcomed the feeling.


	11. Chapter 11

“Hey, wake up.”

The words were barely decipherable in the haze of sleep, but he recognized the voice.

“C’mon, now,” the voice said, pushing his shoulder. “I really wanted to let you sleep, but you need to eat something.”

“Not hungry,” he mumbled, still not thinking clearly.

A laugh echoed in the room. “You’ve eaten a good meal once in probably the last seventy years. Get up, we’re going to the cafeteria. Then you can come back and sleep as much as you want to.” Clara pushed his shoulder again until he was lying on his back, blinking into the light on the ceiling.

“I feel exhausted,” he groaned, rubbing his face with his flesh hand.

“Well, you only slept for about two hours. But we had a late lunch and I figure there’s probably no one in the cafeteria right now. Stark says they have hamburgers. You’ve had those before, right?”

“Yes.” He sat up and made his way to the door, Clara close behind him. “About earlier,” he started, not turning to look at her.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. He pressed the button on the elevator then finally looked over at her. She had her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, a smile on her face. 

“I told you. It’s alright.” The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. He motioned for her to go ahead of them. Once they were inside and the doors shut, she looked up at him. “Do you regret it?”

“Yes,” he replied instantly.

“That’s progress. That’s how you know Hydra has no hold over you anymore,” Clara stated happily, watching the numbers change above them. “That’s how you know you’re healing.”

He watched her carefully until the doors opened and she all but ran out and into the cafeteria. She was about the size Steve was before he’d gotten the serum and shot up several feet. But she looked like Connie. The familiarity was almost a little overwhelming.

Why did he trust her so much after having met her only a couple of days ago? Probably because there was nothing to lose at this point, he conceded. What would trusting her psychological advice do to him? The things she was saying made sense, for the most part. Regret hadn’t been a part of him when he was with Hydra.

He followed Clara and let her help him get his food on a tray and make it to a seat in the corner at an empty table.

“So,” Clara started when he took his first bite, eyes widening slightly. He stared down at his hamburger as he chewed and Clara smiled. “Good?”

“I remember these,” he stated, taking another bite.

“Well, that’s good.” She took a bite of hers and they ate in silence for a few minutes until she got up the nerve to speak again, knowing it would only bring down his mood. “So, I have a suggestion you might not like.”

He stopped eating for a minute then took a sip of his water. “What?”

“I really, really think you should talk to Steve.”

“No,” he refused quickly.

“Please—”

“No.”

He wouldn’t look at her now; he focused on the rest of his food. “Explain to me your aversion to seeing Steve. Please, because I’m lost,” Clara said, trying hard not to sound as exasperated as she felt.

“Because of who Steve is and what I remember of him—what I’ve read,” he explained between bites. “I remember the day I got drafted. I remember the feeling of dread—I didn’t want to go to war. But I remember not telling Steve because he wanted nothing more than to serve our country.”

“Because of his size and his health.”

“I remember two different times I had to pull bullies off him. I know there had to have been more times, but that’s all I remember. Steve doesn’t like bullies.”

“And you think that’s what the Winter Soldier is,” Clara realized.

“At an extremely basic level, yes.”

Clara crossed her arms on the tabletop and waited for his to finish his water. “You think he’ll hate you?”

“No, and that’s the problem. The way he looked at me on the bridge, on the Helicarrier—when we were fighting on the Helicarrier, he told me he was my friend. I told him he was my mission. Then he told me to finish it. And he gave up.” He leaned back in his chair. “I was shocked. My missions always put up a tremendous fight. No one wants to die. But Steve was ready to.”

Clara pressed her lips together and looked down at the table. “You were his best friend.”

“Let’s put a little more emphasis on were.”

“Yes—let’s,” Clara said. “Because last time he saw you—you were dead to him. The last time he saw you, you fell from a train.”

“I remember,” he growled quietly.

“So put yourself in his place—if Steve had been the Winter Soldier, had literally come back from the dead, would you want to give up on him?”

The man was silent. What would that be like? As if he hadn’t thought of thousands of “what ifs” already. But the fact of the matter, the point his mind couldn’t seem to get past was—would he have really behaved like Steve if their situations would reversed?

Answer? He might never know because he didn’t know who he had been enough to know how he would have reacted.

He ran a tongue over his lips and crossed his arms. “What do I even say to him?”

“Whatever you want.”

“I don’t even know what we’d talk about,” he sighed. He stood up and piled her trash on his tray, tucked her tray under his, and took both to the trash.

“You could tell him what you remember—let him help you fill in ay blanks you might have,” she suggested as they made their way back to the elevator. 

“I can’t,” he decided suddenly, mashing the up button for the elevator. 

“You’re just being stubborn, at this point, I think,” she said. “Suck in your pride and talk to your friend. If you don’t know what to talk about, let Steve do the talking—I’m sure he’ll think of something.”

There was silence in the elevator until it dinged at their floor and let them off. He headed back down the hall towards his room, but stopped suddenly, his back still to her. “When do I have to see him?”

“You don’t have to do anything,” she said, crossing her arms. “As your doctor I’m advising you to wait to see him until you’re ready. As your friend, I’m telling you to talk to him, because he’s only going to wait until the end of the week before he comes back here. That’s as long as I could hold him off.”

“Right.” He didn’t move, but she noticed him shift his weight from one foot to the other. “Friends? Is that what we are?”

“A friend is someone you have a mutual bond with,” she defined. “I’d like to think we’ve bonded a bit.”

Slowly he turned to her and jammed both his hands in her pockets, eyes watching her carefully. “Can I see him before the surgery the day after tomorrow? I have something I want to ask him about—something I want to check.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll give him a call,” she murmured, taken aback. “But can I ask, why the sudden change in heart? Literally five minutes ago—”

“I just remembered something. I want to ask him about it—to make sure it’s mine,” he explained. “Not Hydra’s.”

“Right. Okay. I’ll call him tonight—you go back to sleep. Tomorrow we can take a trip to Brooklyn if you’d like.”

The Winter Soldier nodded and made his way to his room, heart pounding in his chest. So many decisions he had made himself. It felt…good.

XXX

Clara stood in front of the elevators, but didn’t press a button. “JARVIS? Where is Mr. Stark?”

“Mr. Stark left the building with Ms. Potts approximately two hours ago,” came the response.

“Okay,” she said, changing gears. “Well, do you happen to have Steve Rogers’ mobile number?”

“Mr. Stark does not store that information on a server that you have clearance to access,” the AI responded. Clara felt herself deflate. “But Dr. Banner is on the fiftieth floor, in lab number 8.”

She smiled. “Thank you, JARVIS,” she chirped, making her way down to the labs. When she got there, Bruce was hunched over a report, several of the monitors pulled close around him. He glanced up as she walked in as quietly as she could.

“I’ll be with you in a second,” he muttered distractedly. He taped one of the monitors and a few of the graphs she could see changed their values. He jotted down a few notes and then straightened up, taking off his glasses. “What can I do for you, Dr. Maitland?”

“Tony left for the night—I was hoping you had Steve’s mobile number,” she explained, leaning against the table. 

“Yeah, sure,” he muttered, pulling out his own phone and a scrap piece of paper. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything is as good as it can be for now, I guess,” she told him, watching his scratch down the numbers. “He just agreed to talk to Steve, but he wants to do it before the surgery.”

“Fair enough.” He handed her the number and walked back to his station. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thank you.”

She sighed and pressed her back into the wall, legs crossed beneath her. Papers were strewn out across the bed in front of her. The lamp on a small bedside table next to her gave off a dull yellow glow, but didn’t offer too much assistance in the ways of actually reading the papers—though she knew what they all said.

Clara pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed the number on the slip of paper that was balanced on her knee. She glanced at the clock on the wall while it rang, hoping nine at night was not too late for him.

“Hello?”

“Steve? This is Clara Maitland.”

“Oh.” He sounded a bit surprised. “How are you? How is Bucky doing?”

She smiled at his enthusiasm. “Well, he told me he wants to talk to you before his surgery.”

“The surgery to remove the tech in his head? You’re sure he wants to see me?” He sounded skeptical and she couldn’t blame him. But the sooner she could set this meeting in stone, the better. That way the soldier couldn’t back down.

“Right. He’s doing…well, considering.” She tucked the phone between her shoulder and her ear and flipped through some of the pages on the bed in front of her, a pinching sensation building in her eyes. “The file you gave me—some of the things they did,” she choked out, embarrassed at the blatant emotion in her voice. “It was quite horrible. Electroshock therapy, cryo-freeze, intense conditioning…I don’t want to go into detail over some of the sessions they wrote about because I don’t want to step on his trust in me, but…”

“Don’t tell me anything you’re not comfortable with, as long as you’re sure he won’t hurt himself,” Steve assured her gently, voice soft and assuring. This man led armies, she reminded herself.

She took a few breaths and put the papers back on the bed, running a hand over her face. “We’re, uh, we’re going to Brooklyn tomorrow.”

“It’s not the same,” he responded sadly. “A few buildings here and there, but it’s changed a lot. Not sure how much he’ll remember about it.”

“He remembers a bit about Connie,” Clara told him, voice a bit stronger. “He remembers when they met.”

“Oh,” Steve sighed with a laugh. “I remember her. They were real sweet on each other. Longest girl he was with, I think. Kept trying to hook me up with her friends.”

“She’s my grandmother,” Clara blurted. “She left diaries and pictures. When I was in the hospital for a cut after SHIELD collapsed, he was there getting his shoulder set. I recognized him from the photos.” The emotion had seeped back into her voice, remembering the words in the diaries, the pure, raw emotion her grandmother had written about. “It was kind of confirmed when he called me Connie—he thought I was my grandmother.”

Steve had been silent though her entire confession and she wondered in the back of her mind if he had hung up or if the call had dropped. But she continued to speak anyways, getting the words out could only make her feel better. She let out a loud breath. “I’m too emotionally attached,” she stated firmly. “I shouldn’t be his doctor anymore. I should talk to Stark about finding—”

“No,” Steve interrupted. “Please, continue with what you’ve been doing. You got Bucky to agree to talk to me. That’s an improvement, considering he was trying to kill me a few days ago.”

“The file you gave me—this is downright horrifying to a degree I’ve never seen before,” she muttered.

“Please, Clara. Hydra can be anywhere—anyone. Sometimes you just need to trust a stranger. Bucky did, and he found you. And you’re helping,” he explained quickly. “Please, just keep at it until he recovers from the surgery.”

“Alright.”

“Do you still have Connie’s diaries?” Steve asked her suddenly.

Clara cleared her thought and looked towards her duffle bag in the corner. “Yeah. Way ahead of you—I brought a few relevant ones with me. I just needed something to compare with, to make sure it was him. I was considering giving them to him.”

“It’s up to you,” he said, “but maybe it will help him. I’m just glad there’s someone there to help him since I can’t.”

“He’s remembering you,” she assured him. “Slowly—some good, some bad. Just think before you say things in front of him to keep from upsetting him.”

“What kinds of things has he remembered, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Like I said, he remembers a bit about Connie, he remembers you—you saving him and the rest of the 107th. He wasn’t sure that one was real. But he was adamant that whatever they did to him in the lab that day was what saved him from the fall.”

“So he remembers the train,” Steve guessed, voice flat.

“Let him tell you what he remembers,” she advised. “He said something about how he wanted to ask you something. Make sure something was his and not Hydra’s.”

“Any idea what that might be?”

“Not a clue. But the surgery is the day after tomorrow, I’ll tell Tony to call you with more details—he’s the one setting it all up.”

“Thank you, Clara,” Steve pressed. “Really. For everything.”

“It’s what I do. I’ll see you then.”

XXX

The Soldier was awake when she knocked lightly on the door around nine the next morning, poking her head in when he called out a quiet permission for her to enter. He was standing in front of a window across the room, shirt in his hand.

He could feel her eyes on him and quickly turned towards her, pulling on his shirt, fingers making quick work of the buttons.

“Want to ride around Brooklyn?” she asked, pushing the door open wider to lean on the frame.

He put his hands in his pockets and nodded. Clara led the way down the hall slowly. The Soldier noted that she’d pulled her hair back with a tie. In all of his memories of Connie—from their first meeting at the pub, numerous random memories of them dancing, laughing, and kissing, to their last night together at the expo, not once had Connie’s hair been pulled back like that.

It was different, and he liked the distinction between the two.

“Hey, JARVIS,” Clara called out and waited for a reply.

“Yes, Dr. Maitland?”

“What year was IHop founded?”

“IHop was founded in 1958 in Toluca Lake, California.”

“What’s IHop?” he dared to ask, seeing her face light up.

“Oh, this is going to be a great morning. You’ll love it,” she told him as they got on the elevator, a huge grin on her face.


	12. Chapter 12

“Anything that looks familiar?” she asked quietly as they looped through the roads in a car Stark had loaned to her for the day.

“Not really,” he grumbled. “It all looks…”

“New,” she supplied.

“Right.”

Clara turned onto a road that looped around the outskirts of the town. Buildings lined the street on the right, but endless grass fields dotted with trees and gravestones stretched out to their left. She noticed the soldier perk up and lean forward to see around her. She was already looking for a parking place of the side of the road before he even asked her to stop.

“You recognize this cemetery?” she asked him as they got out.

“Yes,” he grunted, leading the way across the road and down a foot path.

“Don’t do this to yourself,” she advised warily, catching up to his fast pace.

“It’s not war related.” They walked for a minute or two, moving quickly towards a far corner, when he stopped suddenly.

“Oh.”

He stared wide-eyed at his own name carved into a stone. One Barnes in a line. His was between two other plots. He pointed to the one on the right. “That’s my sister,” he whispered. To the one on the left, “that’s my mother.” The one on the other side of hers. “My father.”

“I’m sorry,” she managed. She wanted to comfort him somehow, in some way other than her words. She wanted to take his hand so that he had some form of physical comfort. But she hesitated, unsure of how he would react.

“Everyone dies,” he stated bluntly. He kicked at the grass at the end of his own grave. “It’s empty, though.” He held up his metal hand and wiggled the fingers a little. “Unless it’s not.”

“Are you making jokes,” she mock gasped, staring up at him.

A smile flit across his face, a short lift of the corners of his mouth. “My sister got married,” he muttered. His heart sunk. He hadn’t met her husband. He hadn’t met any of her dates. He hadn’t been there for her wedding. Nothing. “Rebecca Proctor.” He didn’t remember much of her, but he remembered loving her despite the gap in their ages.

“So you could still have family out there,” Clara noted lightly, only to be shot down.

“My family is dead.” He turned on his heel and headed down a different path, seeming to know where he was going. He stopped in front of a new set of graves.

“Steve got a grave, too,” Clara whispered, pointing. “Are those his parents?”

“Yeah,” the soldier breathed. “I remember when his mom died.” His face was tilted down towards the headstones, but his eyes were not looking at them. They were distant. Remembering.

“How much of your life before do you remember?” she asked, choosing her words carefully.

“Enough to know Bucky died a hero. His grave is back there,” he responded, gesturing back down the path the way they’d come. Before she could respond—lightly scold him for what he’d said—he changed the subject. “Is your family buried here in the States or in England?”

“Well,” she started slowly, deciding to take this opportunity. “I told you my grandmother lived here in New York—my dad’s family is from England. But my grandmother and my mom are actually buried here. My grandmother is from Brooklyn.”

He turned to look at her suddenly. “Buried here as in, the US here, or this cemetery here?”

She bit her lip and led the way across the cemetery to a grave marker that she was more familiar with, knowing the cat was out of the bag, so to speak.

The Winter Soldier watched her lead the way this time, eyes flicking over his shoulder towards the graves of his family. She came to a stop and he almost ran into her. His blood ran cold when he looked at the marker. It was worn and dirty but the name, the inscription, the photo—they were as clear as if it had been carved into the stone yesterday.

Connie Louise Warner  
January 21, 1919- November 14, 1995

The Soldier swallowed roughly. He could feel his face getting hot, but his eyes refused to leave the sepia photo of the young, black-haired girl. The photo had been taken later in her life, but she was just as he had remembered her. Dark eyes and hair, dainty smile with the dimple.

“We do kind of look similar,” she noted quietly. 

“Did you know before that Connie was your grandmother?” he managed with difficulty.

“I had my suspicions,” she murmured. He could feel her eyes on him but he couldn’t bring himself to look away from the photo of Connie. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

“Is that why you’re helping me?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” She sighed and turned back towards the car. “I talked to Steve about it when I called him last night.” He followed her slowly, watching her glance at the markers as they passed them. “I have these diaries she wrote. You’re mentioned in a lot of the earlier ones. I have them in the car.”

What could he say to her? Clara was Connie’s granddaughter. But it wasn’t anything Clara did that upset him. It was knowing that Connie had moved on, forgotten about him. She’d started a family, got married, had children. She’d lived her life completely and he hadn’t been around to witness it.

The Winter Soldier blinked into another time. He was sitting at a booth inside some old burger joint. Empty plates had been pushed aside. It was early evening—there weren’t too many occupied booths, but the sun was bright on the horizon to his right.

“Alright,” the girl across from him sighed, dark wavy hair bouncing as she sat up straighter. “Tell me what’s wrong?”

He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

She cocked her head, eyebrows rising. “C’mon, Bucky. I know you. You demanded we go out tonight, you haven’t been yourself in a coupla days. Tell me.”

Bucky ran his tongue between his lips and averted his eyes, focusing instead on an older couple sitting a few booths away along the far wall to his left. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said with a forced smile. Connie shook her head.

“Why can’t you tell me?” she murmured.

“Because I can’t even tell Steve,” he replied, finally meeting her gaze. It was as close to an admission as he would get—as close to saying the words. Like he knew it would, he watched the realization wash over her face. She blinked in surprise, at first, and then connected the dots. Her eyebrows pulled together and her eyes got wide and shiny. 

“Did you enlist or—”

Bucky shook his head. “Steve needs me here—I can’t just leave. I’m all the family he’s got now—”

Connie’s hand flew to her mouth with a gasp and she tucked into herself, shoulders shaking. Bucky pulled out his wallet and dropped a few bills on the table before standing up and helping Connie out of the booth. She wrapped her arms around him and let him lead her out of the building.

“C’mon, Connie,” he breathed, pulling her towards a bench across the street. “Everyone knows this could happen.”

“I know—” She took the handkerchief he was holding out for her and dabbed at her face as he pulled her down gently onto the bench next to him. Her face was red, eyes wide as she looked up at him. “I just…”

Bucky pressed his lips to hers suddenly, hands slipping through her hair at the base of her neck. When he finally pulled away, he rested his forehead on hers and sighed. “Let’s go dancing—one last time—”

She pulled away from him suddenly, eyebrows pulled together. “No,” she cried. “We’ll go dancing again when you come back, too.”

A grin spread across his face and he pulled the girl back to him, pecking her on the cheek. “Yeah?” he laughed. “You really gonna wait for me?”

Connie just smiled.


	13. Chapter 13

“Hey, Big Guy, the little lady here can’t carry you to her car, and I’m really in no shape to do it myself.” The voice seeped into his consciousness and prodded him towards the surface. “I’m gonna need you to wake up.”

“Something’s really wrong this time,” a worried voice stated. “He hit his head pretty damn hard.”

A hand lifted his head up near the base of his neck and gently poked a tender spot. He let out a breath at the sudden pain he wasn’t expecting and his eyes flew open. Tony and Clara hovered over him, but the bright sun had him shutting his eyes as he sat up.

“Are you okay?”

“Headache,” he muttered, moving to stand. 

Clara pressed down on his shoulders. “Just sit for a minute—you’ve been out cold for almost an hour. I had to fight off everyone who walked by and wanted to call an ambulance—I convinced them you were narcoleptic.”

Whatever that meant. “I’m fine,” he grunted, standing anyways. His head was throbbing where it had made contact with the concrete, but he was otherwise stable on his feet. “I don’t remember falling.”

“You were out cold before you even hit the ground,” Clara explained. “You stopped walking, I turned around, and you just collapsed to the ground. I didn’t know what to do so I called Stark.”

“We’ll need to get your head looked at by Banner when we get back,” Tony said, crossing his arms. “There was a bit of a problem—I couldn’t get the guy I originally wanted out here this week.”

“What? Then what are we gonna do?” Clara asked. 

Tony held up a hand. “Taken care of already. SHIELD was heavily monitoring a neurosurgeon, ironically. I contacted him, we talked a bit. He’ll be here by lunch tomorrow.”

“How do you know he’s not Hydra?” the soldier demanded. 

“I know you’re Hydraphobic, but I’m Tony Stark—master of questioning SHIELD and everything in it,” Tony muttered, walking away. “Trust me, Tin Soldier. I did my research.”

Clara blew air between her lips loudly and looked up at him warily. “He means well?” she smiled.

“He’s familiar,” was the only response. “I feel like I’ve met him before.”

“C’mon. Let’s go back to the car.” Clara motioned for him to head down the path first and he obeyed. “So…”

“What?”

She fidgeted with her fingers and pressed her lips together, smiling. “Did you—you know. Remember anything?”

He let out a short laugh. “Yeah.”

Noticing his change in attitude, she felt a little more hesitant, wondering how much more she should press on about it. “Happy or not happy?”

“Not happy,” he muttered, opening the driver’s side door before heading for his door on the other side.

Once they were in, she leaned around the driver’s seat and pulled four books out of her bag, holding them out to him. “You don’t have to read them, but they’re here if you want them. Keep them for a while.”

The Soldier took the stack and laid them in his lap. Each book was different, but two were clearly much older than the others. He opened the cover of one of the older ones. The date on the first page was from 1942. The other was from 1939. He picked up a third—1988. The last one was from 1995 and wasn’t completely filled.

A picture slid from the pages and fluttered to the ground at his feet. He could see the worn edges, the deteriorated image before he even picked it up.

“Is this how you recognized me?” he asked quietly, looking over the photo. She had been in a white dress, hand laced with his; he’d been in full uniform. It was taken a couple of days before the expo.

“Clara’s eyes flicked over to the photo for a second as she drove. “No, not that one. She had a couple of pictures of you, but that was the one she was using as a bookmark in that diary.”

“Thank you.”

Clara smiled at him. “Keep them as long as you want—they were collecting dust in a box in my closet back in DC.”

He flipped open to the first page of the oldest one, immediately recognizing the loopy cursive writing. Flipping through the pages, something in his heart jumped when he saw the name Bucky appear more and more often.

Deep inside—and he’d never admit it to Clara—he was looking forward to clearing some things up with Steve.

XXX

Clara had thankfully left him to himself when they returned to the tower, wordlessly pressing the button for the rooms they were staying in and the button for Tony’s office. She’d offered up only a smile as he got off the elevator, diaries tucked under his flesh arm.

That’s how he found himself sitting on the floor, back against the door. It was the easiest way to secure the room—he blocked the only entrance with his eyes on the window.

He flipped open to the first page of the oldest diary, skimming the words quickly, noting only the content. The first few pages were about family, friends, her day, and trivial things like her dresses. The first entry he found with him in it had been from the night they’d met in the bar.

He was really very sweet, she’d written. He promised to take me dancing again sometime. He better keep that promise. No good starting off something if he can’t hold up a deal.

Her account of the events matched up with what he remembered, however short that memory was.

We danced for a long time—I enjoyed myself more than I had thought I would. After we left the bar, later than I had intended to, he walked me home like a true gentleman. 

He flipped to the next entry she had written, a couple days after they’d met.

I met Bucky at the diner on the corner today by accident. I was on my way home when he called my name from across the street. My heart had never beaten to hard in my life. Especially when he asked me to have lunch with him. He said he was waiting for a friend and had quite a bit of spare time and wouldn’t mind spending some with me.

While we waited for our order, he told me about his closest friend, Steve. Bucky says Steve is the closest thing he has to a brother. The way he spoke about him—the look on his face was so fond, so gentle. He says I can meet Steve real soon if I wanted, but that implies I would be willing to see him again.

He’s a sly one, that Bucky…

The soldier flipped through a few more entries of similar content, unsure of the words he was reading. The person she described with such fondness felt so familiar, like a memory just out of reach. This person was on the tip of his tongue, but it still felt like a foreign concept to him, that he was this person.

While none of the entries were sparking any memories, he trudged on, hearing Connie’s voice in his head reading her own words into his mind’s ear. Something bubbled in his chest and set a warmth in his chest and a chill in his veins.

Oh, my heavens, I don’t think the words I am about to write down here will do this night justice. Bucky came and picked me up unexpectedly and took me to a picture. It was wonderful. He held my hand the whole time, his fingers fitting between mine like they were made to be there. We walked all the way back to my place. Slowly. He pointed out stars and constellations Steve had told him about. We got to the doorway and he took my hands in his and kissed me until I thought I’d suffocate.

He continued to read through her entries. Time flew by and he wasn’t sure when it had happened, but the sun was no longer visible out the window. He relocated to the bed, turning on the bedside lamp as he adjusted himself against the headboard. 

By the end of the first diary, nearly eight months of time had passed in her stories. In his mind, he was piecing together something. Bucky—he had gone through some changes. This was not the person he’d read about at the Smithsonian. This version of himself was a lot happier with the world around him. He had yet to experience the war.

And the soldier knew exactly the point in Connie’s diaries that he’d gotten the draft. He himself couldn’t remember the date the letter had arrived, but the tone of her entries changed. There was an entire week and a half of no entries after one in particular where she mentioned that he barely looked at her. After that, the worried tone of her writing seemed to carry on and on.

Then came the entry he was expecting.

Oh, this is awful. I don’t even know what to do. Bucky has been drafted. Everyone of age knows it’s bound to happen to them one day, I was just so caught up in everything that was going on with us—how well it was going, too! 

I feel blindsided, like I’ve been slapped. More than that, I feel foolish. I should have seen this coming. But Bucky’s face the whole dinner when he finally told me. Do you know what this fools first concern was? Not himself! Steve!

I couldn’t contain my emotions at that point. The most selfless person I have ever met in my entire life is going to go lose his life somewhere overseas, away from me, away from his best friend and his family.

What if he doesn’t come home? Oh, heavens, I don’t even know how Bucky is handling this. He must be terrified…

The tense muscles in his arms and back began to ache with fatigue and he wondered how long he’d been that tense. Forcing himself out of that world, he closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders, listening to the whirring in his left arm.

After a few minutes, he returned to the pages, plowing through the next handful of entries—she described in a melancholy filter how he would leave for training, coming home too exhausted to see her, much to his own disappointment, but just as much hers. 

The entry of their last night together before he shipped out was an emotional rollercoaster. According to her, the day started out wonderful—Bucky had shown up at her place in full uniform with a new haircut and a bouquet of flowers. 

He told me he was going to buy me a late lunch and then we would stop by the expo before going dancing all night. But there was something in the way everything happened that I should have known something was wrong. I was just so blinded by his happy mood, I don’t think I wanted to spoil it for him. Bucky just hadn’t been Bucky in a while.

It was what he asked me that began to tip his hand, I think. He asked if any of my friends were available for the evening.

“I won’t be around for him anymore,” he had begged, the soldier remembered suddenly. “I just want to find him someone—anyone who will be there for him.”

She apparently had found out after they’d enjoyed their night, as he was walking Connie and her friend home, that he was going to be shipped out the next morning. She’d been furious. Angry—shouting at him, hitting him, crying. And he had taken it all, apologizing profusely. 

This was not a man he remembered being, the soldier decided. Entry after entry following his departure—each was the same in both tone and content. She described her increasing feelings of depression and anxiety of him being at war, wondering, worrying if he would come home breathing or in a box. Or worse—with a mind far too damaged by the war to be anything close to the charming man she’d come to know.

If only she knew…


	14. Chapter 14

The Soldier sat reading her words with some foreign emotion taking hold in his chest. While he couldn’t remember half of the things she tended to reminisce about in the months of entries that followed his departure, he felt for the young woman.

The emotions in his chest and the pit of his stomach froze when her writing turned frantic, her words barely forming sentences. She’d gotten word he was MIA. And she was broken. The entry was more of a list than paragraphs of words. Things she’d regretted—not spending more time with him, not looking after Steve for him, not telling him that, though they’d only known each other about a year, she loved him.

His metal hand was suddenly at his face. When he pulled it away, the metal glinted wetly. He was crying. The emotion in his chest bubbled up and left him in a choked, twisted sob. The more he felt like this, the better he felt. 

At Hydra, he’d never felt anything. The Winter Soldier was not expected to feel. He was expected to do his job—his missions—without question, without emotions or opinions getting in the way. Feeling emotions—sadness, anger, worry—it was a welcome change, he decided.

XXX

“Yes, I’ll be back in DC soon,” Clara was muttering into a phone quietly across the room from Tony, who was working at his desk. “I’m not—I don’t have specific dates yet, but we can schedule something for—” she flipped through a thick black planner quickly, “how about in a week and a half? I should be done with business here by then.”

The door to the office suddenly opened and both occupants watched as Steve walked in and, noticing Clara on the phone, shut the door as gently as he could.

“You’re early,” Tony noted, returning to his work.

Steve’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Are you—are you actually working? I thought Pepper—”

“Has the day off,” Tony pressed, his tone shutting down the conversation. 

“Oh no, I’m fine,” Clara replied to her client when asked if everything was okay, snapping her back to her own conversation. “I’ve just been called out to New York to handle a bit of a special case. I’m passing it on to another doctor at the end of the week, I think.”

“Apparently she still has a life,” Tony commented to Steve, earning a nasty look from Clara.

“Okay, well, try not to do anything too stressful and we’ll talk when I return.” She shut her phone and dropped it into her bag at her feet, then slouched down into the chair and gave her attention to the man standing before her. “I don’t know if he’s awake yet, but there are a few things I’d like to go over with you before you see him, if you don’t mind.”

Steve pulled the chair in front of Tony’s desk around so that he was facing her. “Setting some rules?”

“Of sorts,” Clara smiled. “More like guidelines to help him—”

“It’s alright, Dr. Maitland,” he waved her away. “Whatever I need to do.”

“Alright.” She let out a breath and pulled a notebook from her bag, flipping to a few pages worth of notes before she spoke again. “Okay, so he’s been remembering a few bits here but there’re a few things I want to make you aware of—handling someone with amnesia paired with PTSD like this, I just want to handle this with care.”

“Of course,” Tony muttered from behind Steve.

“There are a few different types of amnesia—but in his case, I’m leaning towards what’s called retrograde amnesia. Based on the reports I’ve read, when they found him, he remembered nothing about himself.”

“You mean he had amnesia from the fall?” Steve clarified, wringing his hands in his lap.

“Possibly.”

“That would actually make the most sense,” Tony began, pushing away from his computer and moving to join their little group discussion across the room. “With no memories Hydra was basically given a blank super soldier. They could convince him of anything.”

“And he would believe that?” Steve questioned, skeptical. “Hydra managed to turn him into exactly what we were fighting.”

“The right wording and Hydra could manipulate him into believing he was doing good work,” Clara said quietly. “But what I desperately want to avoid is false memory syndrome. This is when false memories are created through suggestion—intentional or otherwise. Things he imagines from the stories he’s told—he might start to believe they’re memories when they’re just his imagination.”

“So don’t tell him stories,” Steve guessed.

“Let him tell you. It’s much better for him to find the memories himself, so to speak,” she said. “I think he already questions what he remembers.”

Tony glanced at the time on his watch. “You’ve got less than an hour before the doctor gets here,” he said, turning away. “I’ve got a bit of work to do for the company, but I’ll let you know when it’s time.”

“Thanks,” Steve muttered as he and Clara left the room.

XXX

The clock on the wall ticked away the morning. The soldier had woken up soundlessly from a dreamless sleep in time to watch the sun slowly light the room. What time was the procedure? Someone was bound to come collect him when it was time—or rather, if Steve was there.

He laid on the bed until mid-morning, sorting through his thoughts slowly and carefully in a way he had never been able to before. With Hydra he was told what to think and when. Sure, he’d had his own thoughts, but they were short and fleeting.

The book lying on top of the blankets next to him was like a beacon. He couldn’t stop staring at it, but made no immediate move to open it. The urge to pick up reading where he’d left off was warring in his mind. He didn’t want to know what happened next, because he could give a pretty damned good guess.

It was a while—almost an hour, if the angle of the light streaming in from the window was anything to go by—before he picked up the diary and took a seat beneath the window, back against the wall.

He’s gone. She wrote, the words nearly scratched into the page. There had been a long gap—almost three weeks between her last entry and this one. The funeral was last week. It was both expected and unexpected. He’d been MIA for a while. I got word from his parents—Steve had a letter sent that Bucky had been found and rescued with the rest of the men. But it was fleeting. 

I feel like I was teased. I feel like someone filled me from head to toe with wonderful hope only to rip it from my flesh in the most painful way possible. I think the worst of it was watching them bury an empty box.

I feel so awful inside and my mind can’t keep the horrible thoughts from coming. Where was his body? No doubt dumped somewhere, left somewhere to rot as another nameless soldier, another among thousands.

I’m trying to cope, trying hard to move on, because I am too young to waste my life over this—as horrible and heartless a thought that is, I know Bucky wouldn’t want me to mourn him for the rest of my life. But for right now, there is nothing I want to do. I just want to cry…

The soldier flipped through the last few sporadic, short entries until the end of the book—the last date was several months after his funeral.

The tone of the first entry of the next book, dated a few years after the last, was entirely different. It was more chipper, much like the first few entries he had read. She detailed for a few entries about a new man she had met. William Warner. 

Connie’s headstone passed through his mind’s eye at the recognition of his last name. Something twitched in his metal arm unnervingly and he shut the diary. He didn’t want to read about that. Not just yet. Not when he could only barely remember the feelings he’d had for her.

A glance up at the clock on the wall told him morning was almost over, and that someone would be coming to collect him soon for the procedure. So, not wanting to waste time, he opened the last, most recent diary, and flipped to the last entry.

I am going to die today. I can feel it. I welcome it. Even surrounded by my family—my children and their children and their spouses—I feel too lonely. I’m ready to be with William again. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to go mad missing him.

But Bucky…I don’t think a day goes by I don’t sit and wonder. I still believe we were supposed to be together. Rebecca passed away a few months ago and I believe she is finally with her brother. I’d like to hope he has someone up there—though I know he has Steve with him.

Just once. I’d like to see Bucky just once before I die—maybe his ghost. Penny talks about ghosts all the time. If his ghost could come see me once before I die, just so I can tell him I love him—that he died a great man in my eyes, that I looked after his little sister as much as I could. 

That is the thing about getting old that I have noticed recently. I’ve been unintentionally making lists of things in my head that I wish I could do before I die. Did Bucky do this when he realized he was going to die? Maybe he realized this when he got the draft notice. It would explain his behavior, I think.

Was someone knocking at the door? The sudden twisting of metal, a short scratching sound, and the door slammed against the wall with a loud bang. The Soldier’s eyes jumped up to the man and woman in the doorway, eyes finally leaving the page.

“Bucky,” the man gasped, crossing the room in a few long strides. He knelt down and reached out, but the soldier slapped his hand away and stood, dragging his flesh hand across his eyes when he was turned away from the other two, discreetly rubbing the wetness from his eyes.

“Are you alright?” Clara demanded.

“I’m fine,” he snapped.

“Can you give us a bit, Dr. Maitland?” Steve murmured to her, receiving a nod. Clara closed the door as best she could without a knob and Steve waited until they couldn’t hear her footfalls anymore. “Bucky—”

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, a little more unconvincingly. He tilted his head back and sighed.

“No you’re not, Buck,” Steve began, sitting gently on the edge of the bed, watching his friend like a hawk. “But that’s alright. It’s not easy—I know what it’s like to get a bit of a culture shock.”

“This is more than a culture shock,” he replied dryly.

Steve let out a humorless laugh and nodded. “Yeah, but that’s the best way I could think to describe it.”

He paced in front of the bed slowly, Steve’s eyes on him. “How did you do it?” he muttered. “When they found you—how did you not go insane? How did you know who you were? How did you know what they were telling you was true?”

“I didn’t,” Steve said bluntly. “But I had my memories—”

“How can I trust those?” the Soldier snapped, stopping his movements. “How d I know those things I remember are mine?”

“You think Hydra somehow gave you fake memories?” Steve concluded.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” he said bitterly.

Steve took a long slow breath and then looked back at his friend. “Tell me what you remember,” he said firmly. “I’ll see if it matches up with what I remember. Tell me about Connie.”

His lips twitched and he let out a soft, bitter laugh. “Clara tell you about her?”

“Yeah, but I wanna know what you know about her.”

Tongue running quickly between his pressed lips, he took a seat beneath the window and slid a diary towards Steve. “So, from what I recall,” he began slowly, “we met at a bar…”


	15. Chapter 15

The two sat quietly in the room, no sounds but gentle breathing and the soft ticking of the clock on the wall. He had told Steve practically everything he remembered—Connie, them—but he left out the few sporadic fragments of memories—visions of snow and cold, of blood and pain.

“Why did you want to see me?” Steve asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“A friend is someone you have a mutual bond with,” he said. “I’d like to think we’ve bonded a bit.”

“What?” Steve looked up from his lap towards the man on the floor.

“That’s what I said to you the first time we met. I pulled those thugs off you.” He hesitated, jaw working to voice his next thoughts. “I trusted you. Then, as a six year old, and even in the war, I trusted you. And something in me wants to trust you now.”

“Buck—”

“I want to know if all of these memories are mine—not Hydra’s—not stories. That they’re real and they are mine.” His set a determined, hard gaze on the man who called himself his friend.

“Bucky,” Steve breathed. “Everything you’ve told me—all of the stuff I was there for, I remember that.”

He blinked and looked away, nodding slowly. “Thanks, Steve.”

“I wish I had saved you on that train.”

“Then I would be dead right now. You wish I was dead?”

“No. I wish you had gotten to live the rest of your life.”

“I’ve killed people.”

“So have I,” Steve snapped right back. “Neither of us are saints, Buck. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. You were just fighting for a cause you never would have believed in on your own.”

“From what I remember…” he started, but shook his head and slumped back into the wall. 

“What?” Steve prodded, knowing he shouldn’t push, but curiosity getting the best of him.

“From the things I remember…It was like—I was always protecting you, you know? And then suddenly…suddenly you didn’t need me anymore. You came in and single-handedly saved us all. You didn’t need me to save you anymore.” Steve opened his mouth to continue, but the soldier hopped to his feet and began to pace in front of him. “My memories as the Winter Soldier—as Hydra’s assassin—there’s a lot of them that I remember. I started remembering those before I even left Hydra.

“Every time I went to pull the trigger, to finish the job, I would hear a voice in my head telling me no. I always ignored it. Then one day—I heard that same voice yelling to me from across a bridge. It called me Bucky.” He stopped pacing and looked up at Steve. “Hydra could shock my memories into repression as much as they wanted, but some things were just too stubborn to stay down.”

Steve grinned. “That’s me. That little guy from Brooklyn that was too stupid not to run away from a fight.” His smile faltered when his friend didn’t react to his own words, reminding him that, as Bucky-like as this man was right now, he was not yet Bucky.

“Captain Rogers, Mr. Stark would like to inform you that everything is prepped and waiting for you and Sergeant Barnes on basement level five.” The AI’s voice echoed in the small bland room and Steve stood.

“Thanks, JARVIS.”

“Do you ever get used to that?” he muttered to Steve as they left the room.

Steve laughed. “Takes a while, but almost.”

XXX

The doctor Tony found was a tall, older man with thick black and gray peppered hair. He was wearing a designer suit and if Clara didn’t know any better, she would have thought he was a CEO from another company coming to talk to Tony.

But the white gloves on his hands were a tiny tip off.

“So, Stark admits he found you through the SHIELD files that were leaked online,” Clara began conversationally as the doctor removed his jacket, draping it over the back of a chair.

“You’re British. Not Ms. Potts, then?” he asked quietly. 

“No, Pepper apparently has the day off.”

“Anyways—I’ve known for some time now that SHIELD has been watching me. They’re not always as slick as they like to think they are.”

Clara smirked at that. “I’d say they’re beginning to realize that.”

He threw a small smile in her direction as he rolled up his sleeves. “But since I wasn’t doing anything wrong or illegal, I figured there was no reason they’d come after me, so I let them go on with their games.”

“Well that’s good,” she said. “Because thanks to them we were able to find you.”

“Yes. Tony sent me some of the scans Dr. Banner took. Should be easy to remove the tech without having to intrude too much.” He pulled a few tools out of his bag and piled them on a metal table Tony had wheeled in. “Should be a no brainer.”

“Cute,” Clara rolled her eyes.

“Found them in the elevator,” a voice announced. Tony led the two super soldiers into the small, concrete room. Clara watched the solder’s metal fingers twitch, his eyes darting around the room. She could sense the copious amounts of unease rolling off him. Though, he was calm, and she smiled inside at that. Their talk must have gone better.

“Steve Rogers.” He held out his hand to shake the doctor’s.

“Dr. Stephen Strange.”

“Dr. Strange is one of the best neurosurgeons out there,” Tony praised.

Dr. Strange smiled at his patient, who was silently studying him and the room, and held out his right hand. Clara bit her lip and watched the internal struggle play out on his face before he lifted his own right hand up. Without missing a beat, the doctor switched hands. “Tony has told me all about what’s going on and I should have this little problem fixed in no time. We are going to need to sedate you, though—Dr. Maitland told me about the last time—”

“It’s fine,” he interjected. “Not sure how much you’ll need, though—whatever Hydra did to me, my body burns through it.”

“It was in your file—the amount they used to sedate you on bad days,” Clara murmured to him. “I just wanted to ask you about it because—”

“It’s fine,” he repeated.

Tony clapped his hands together and grinned. “Alright. Let’s get this show on the road. It’s date night and I can’t skip again. I’m gonna go find Banner. Prep away. Let JARVIS know if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Dr. Strange muttered, continuing to prepare his station. He turned to his patient and motioned towards the gurney off to their left. “If you could remove your shirt and hop up, we’ll get an IV ready.”

Clara followed him to the gurney and took his shirt from him when he offered it to her. Wordlessly she folded it and put it on the counter along the wall. He was scanning the room again. One door, no windows, and only the necessities in the room. His eyes finally landed on Steve, who was standing a few paces away, arms crossed over his chest.

“A little backwards, isn’t it?” he commented as he hopped up onto the gurney and lay down. “I was always the one watching you in the hospitals.”

Steve chuckled. “Yeah, well, you can’t always be the support. I’m gonna go help Dr. Strange get everything he needs.” He patted his friends arm before leaving, but his place was quickly replaced by Dr. Banner, wheeling a machine over to him.

“Ready?” He waited for a nod before he held up a needle and some medical tape. “This is the IV.” With gentle fingers, he flipped over the flesh arm and swabbed the back of his hand before slipping the needle in like a pro.

Clara’s fingers ghosted over his metal ones when he let out a small breath as the needle went in. Just because he had taken so much damage over the years didn’t mean he’d become immune to pain, she reminded herself.

“We’re trying to do this as quickly as we can without jeopardizing your safety since this kind of procedure is kind of illegal.” He messed with the IV stand, pressing a few buttons and adjusting the hanging bag. A new needle appeared in his hand and he pushed it into the IV line. “This is the sedative. You’ll feel sleepy, but it won’t knock you out entirely. I’ll give that a few minutes and then give you the final dose.” Banner pulled an oxygen mask over his face before checking the IV one last time, then joining Dr. Strange on the other side of the room.

Clara stepped closer to his bed, fingers still brushing over his metal ones. “Feeling it yet?”

“A little…” he breathed.

“It’ll be over before you know it. Then you won’t have to worry about Hydra.”

“I’ll still worry about them…”

“Yeah,” she relented. “But not as much. And Steve will always help you out.”

“You’re going back to DC.” His face had begun to soften, the worry lines on his forehead smoothing out, eyebrows no longer constantly furrowed.

She pursed her lips. “You’ll be fine without me. I’ll talk to Steve and see if we can’t find you someone better suited for you. Steve’s apparently got a friend named Sam that runs a center for war vets.”

He let out a small, unfocused laugh. “The bird-man? I clipped his wings.”

Clara smiled. “Yeah, just make sure to apologize for that.”

“He was shooting at me.”

“Well, apologize for breaking his toy and I’m sure he’ll apologize, too.”

“I’ll try it—because you told me to,” he breathed. “I trust you.”

Clara blinked at his admission, but his eyes had closed. She knew he wasn’t asleep, though, and he definitely wasn’t in his right mind. “I know,” she sighed. “And I promise I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

“Tape something to the ceiling to remind me I’m not at Hydra when I wake up,” he requested, pointing vaguely to the ceiling with the hand he was still clutching her fingers with.

Clara laughed but nodded. “Sure. I’ll think of something.”

“Alright, this dose is gonna knock you out completely,” Banner muttered when he returned with another syringe.

“Dr. Banner and I will be here the whole time and Dr. Strange seems like he knows what he’s doing,” Clara murmured. “You…..you’ll be fine.” His eyes closed once the medication was in and Banner was walking away again.

“Clara.” He reached up with his flesh hand to pull the mask away from his face, but she caught his hand and pulled it away. “No. Clara.”

“What? Leave that there.” She swatted his hand away once more.

“My name,” he whispered airily. 

“Yeah?” His grip of her hand tightened a little, not enough to hurt her, but it was firm.

“Call me….Bucky…” he managed before he was completely gone.

Clara smiled and looked up at Dr. Strange, who was adjusting a medical mask over his face.

“He out?” Tony asked and she nodded. “Well, let’s get this party started then.”

“I don’t see how this is a party,” Clara sighed, wheeling the gurney towards them with Banner’s help.

“He’s not gonna attack us in his sleep, is he?” Tony asked as they all gathered around.

“He’s not a rabid animal—he’s a trained weapon. He doesn’t attack for the hell of it—it’s planned and precise,” Clara explained, a little bit peeved at the idea that he was that uncontrollable. “My belief is that Hydra did something to limit the effects of PTSD. There are a few instances in his file towards the beginning of his treatment where he attacked fellow Hydra members, but there was just a foot note claiming it had been handled.”

“But as he regains parts of his memory, there’s nothing stopping the PTSD symptoms from…happening,” Steve argued.

“In any case, any objections to me disabling his arm during the procedure?” Tony muttered, pulling a small screwdriver from his pocket. When there were no objections, he got to work.


	16. Chapter 16

The medication put him into a shallow but dreamless sleep. To him, it felt like he blinked and he was waking up again. But he felt cold. So, so cold. Numbness stretched from his left arm across his chest and down his back. Like when he was pulled out of cryostasis, the familiar feeling haunting him.

Bucky’s eyes flew open, the light stinging for half a second, focusing slowly. The first thing they focused on was a crude cartoon drawing of what could only be him—a peachy blob with dark hair and a silver left arm, smiling ridiculously with a thumbs up.

‘Not at Hydra. Please don’t break things. -Clara’ it read beneath in both English and barely readable Russian.

A chill of relief flooded through him and he felt his eyelids fall just as the dark haired woman appeared above him. He felt safe for the first time in a long time. Tired, but safe. Clara’s mouth was moving but he only heard white noise as he drifted into a deep sleep.

When he opened his eyes again, he was on his stomach perched just over the ridge of a hill in the woods staring down the scope of a rifle. He took a breath and held it, aiming carefully so as to not accidentally nick the man in red, white, and blue.

With a snap, the rifle went off and another Nazi fell at Steve’s feet. He remembered this, helping Steve take down Nazi’s from the shadows. Letting Steve take all the focus, all the praise, while he did the dirty work from the trenches in the shadows.

He didn’t mind that part—that’s not where the intense bitter emotions stemmed from. Because that was the type of stuff the army trained him to do. No. He was bitter because his kind, loving, gentle friend was out here tossing people around, killing them. This was what Bucky was afraid of. They turned his gentle friend into a weapon.

Steve saluted him from afar and scoped out the rest of the area, taking off when he was sure it was clear of enemy soldiers. Bucky pressed his lips together and stood, gathering his equipment quickly and quietly, following after his friend.

He let out a deep breath and opened his eyes. The sign that had been taped to the ceiling was still there. He heard a page rustle and turned his head towards the man sitting in a chair in next to his bed. Bucky noticed they had moved him from the room in the basement back up to the room he’d been staying in before.

“How are you feeling?” The man shut his book and scooted to the edge of his seat.

“Weird being in the opposite position isn’t it,” Bucky grunted. Steve said nothing, but his eyes danced around the room. Bucky tried to lift his hands to his face, but only the flesh one moved. A bit taken aback, he looked down at the shoulder.

“Tony just disabled it during the procedure for safety reasons. He wanted to wait until you were awake to reconnect it.”

“Who’s safety, yours or mine?” he muttered, using his flesh and blood hand to poke around at the bandages.

“Both,” Steve replied firmly. “How’s your head?”

Taking a moment to assess before speaking, he ran a tongue between his lips. “Brain function is fractionally slower, and response to arm is malfunctioning. There is no pain.”

Steve took a breath slowly and Bucky realized he’d responded like he would have to one of his handlers at Hydra—short and to the point, listing out every problem to be fixed.

“Dr. Strange said it would be a day or two before your accelerated healing picks up again,” Steve explained. “I’m not too sure what he did—he explained it to Tony, and he understood.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You will, Buck. Hydra can’t find you now, and even if they did, you have friends here to back you up,” Steve tried to assure him. “You’re not going to be forced to do anything—”

“Zola didn’t make me a killer, Steve,” Bucky pressed quietly, eyes zoned in on Steve’s. He moved to sit up, pushing the pillows against the headboard. “I was already a killer.”

“There’s a difference between a soldier and a trained assassin,” Steve ground out.

“Is there?” Bucky asked simply. “Is there a difference? I killed people in the war and I killed people over the last seventy years.”

“I killed people during the war, too, Bucky. So has Bruce. So has Natasha and Clint and the hundreds of thousands of soldiers since the war we fought in,” Steve argued. 

“We’re going in circles,” Bucky sighed. He pulled a hand down his face. “Where’s Clara?”

“She’s down in the cafeteria getting something to eat and talking to one of her clients over the phone.” Steve paused, hands gripping the armrests of the chair as if he were going to stand. “Do you want me to go get her?”

“No, no,” he said. “Don’t bother her.” Bucky paused then looked back at Steve. “Where do I go from here, Steve?” His voice was quiet, but his heart was loud in his ears. “What now?”

“We take it day by day,” he replied easily, calmly. Bucky wasn’t sure if Steve had already thought through this or not—if he hadn’t, it didn’t show. “You can stay here in the tower or come back with me to DC.”

Back to DC? Clara was going back to DC, he could—the thought halted in his mind instantly. No, he couldn’t bother her more than she offered. But did he want to stay in this tower with Tony and Pepper?

“We don’t have to figure that out now,” Steve interrupted his thoughts. “Like I said—we’ll take it day by day, play it by ear. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to.”

“What did you do?” he finally dared to ask. “When you woke up after…”

Steve shook his head slowly. “I had Fury. Fury helped me…adjust. I’m not gonna lie, Buck, it’s gonna be hard.”

“I’m not looking for easy,” he ground out. “I’m looking for….I don’t know, meaning? Redemption.”

Steve stood and wiped his palms on the front of his jeans. “Like I said, you have a few days to decide what you want to do, and even then you can change your mind. You’re free now.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” he grumbled, dropping his head back into the pillow.

“Fury called it acculturative stress or something. Ask Clara. It’s a psychological term,” Steve explained. “It’s normal—normal for us.”

“Us…”

“Yeah, I’ve always got your back, Bucky.” He patted Bucky’s leg firmly and headed for the door. “I’m gonna go find us some food. I’ll be back soon.”

Bucky licked his lips and slid back down into the bed, rolling onto his side, holding his metal arm close to his chest. Everything was changing, and he was scared.


	17. Chapter 17

The Winter Soldier’s metal arm hissed in the quiet of the night as he unclasped his hand and the body that was in it hit the floor, louder in his ears than he expected. His eyes flicked around the room and then landed on a shifting of shadows near the door.

With trained precision, he flicked a blade out and caught the shadow in the throat, a satisfactory collapse of human flesh his signal that he hit his mark. He continued out of the main room and towards the sprawling staircase in front of him. Moonlight streamed in from the large windows on the landing between the first and second levels, and he used it to avoid certain, visibly weaker parts of the wooden stairs.

“Who are you?” a voice demanded loudly as he reached the top step. The soldier froze, gaze locking on the tall, thin man standing just to his left. This was unusual, not just because he hadn’t heard the man approaching, but because the Winter Soldier had never experienced his targets coming to him.

Without a reply, he launched forward, slipping a knife from its holster at his back, and lifted it above his head. As he brought it down towards the man’s throat, barely registering the still calm look on the mission’s face, his right arm was forcibly stopped inches away from its mark. No, he analyzed, the knife stopped. 

Not skipping a beat, he swung his heavier metal arm at the man, who ducked, allowing his arm to crash through the thin plaster wall.

“Tell me what you’re doing here,” the man demanded, dodging another sloppy left-armed punch. “This is private property.”

Keeping his vow of silence, the Soldier pulled out his gun and shot. The lights in the hallway flicked on just then, illuminating the bullet frozen in midair, inches from his target’s face.

“What are you?” the Winter Soldier breathed, voice rough with disuse.

The man laughed, eyes flicking towards the soldier’s left arm, still raised, frozen in the air. He couldn’t move it at all—it was new, but could it be malfunctioning?

“Your arm is metal?” the man laughed.

“Eric!” a new voice snapped. “Who the hell have you pissed off now?”

Eric twisted his hand slowly, forcing the Soldier’s arm to lower and slide up his back painfully. He could feel his feet begin to lift off the ground, his shoulder groaning in protest.

“Eric, let him go,” the other man demanded, his fingertips gliding to his temples. In that instant, a voice unlike his own resonated in the Winter Soldier’s mind. “Remain calm and we won’t hurt you.” The man paused, dark eyebrows pulling together in concern and sympathy, and his hand dropped back to his side. “Your mind is so damaged…”

“Charles, he’s still trying to kill me,” Eric muttered.

Ignoring his friend, Charles stepped up to the assassin and slowly raised his hands. “I can help you. You’re confused, hurt—you barely know who you are.”

“I’ve been ordered to kill him,” the Winter Soldier grunted, still trying to release his metal arm.

“I can see that—retaliation for him blowing up a Hydra base.” Charles’s eyes flicked over his shoulder. “We’ll get to that later. For now, I’m more concerned about the damage done to your head.”

“Don’t touch me,” he hissed as Charles’s hands got to close to his face, flashes of scientists coming to his mind’s eye. Scientists strapping him into a chair and shocking him.

“I can help,” Charles pleaded quietly. “Please, I won’t hurt you, not like the scientists.”

“How do you know about them?”

“I can read your mind,” he explained, voice still calm and slow. “And if you’d let me, I’d like to undo some of the damage they’ve caused you.”

“How can you do that?”

“Same way I can control your metal arm,” Eric drawled, bored now. “We’re mutants.”

“And the others are awake, Eric, they heard the gun.” Charles looked back at the Winter Soldier. “What is your name?” Before he could reply, Charles answered for him. “You don’t know.” Without permission, he dared to reach out and touch the captured man’s face in his fingers.

Suddenly he couldn’t move. A peaceful calm washed over him and he was standing in the middle of a white expanse. The man with the long, shaggy brown hair and stubble stood smiling in front of him, hands clasped behind his back. “I’m going to help you…”

Charles pulled away moments later and motioned for Eric to let him go. “Go send the others to bed,” he mumbled. “I’ll take care of this.”

Eric nodded and brushed past them towards the students staring wide-eyed in the hall.

“Who are you?” The Soldier breathed, rubbing his shoulder where metal met flesh.

“My name is Charles Xavier, and you, my friend, are called Bucky.”

“Bucky,” he breathed, trying out the name on his tongue. Yes. That was his name, he suddenly remembered.

“You’re more than this, my friend.”

“I don’t…”

“You’re from Brooklyn, New York,” Charles told him. “You were born around 1918. You certainly don’t look your age. I’m not sure how you’re here now—but it’s 1964.”

Charles watched a memory of a train, of army training, a young girl with brown hair, all of these fragmented memories play out in front of him. He didn’t move to stop the man as his eyes grew wide, flicking up to meet his for a fraction of a second before the Winter Soldier—Bucky—turned and tore down the stairs, breaking the windows on the landing in his escape.

Clara jumped as Bucky’s body jerked and she watched as he flipped off the other side of the bed and hit the floor with a loud crash. Her book fell to the floor as she struggled to get to her feet and to the other side of the bed.

“Oh, God, are you okay?”

He sat up slowly, head down, hand prodding at the bandages still wrapped around his head. Face twisted in pain, he let out a slow breath, trying to calm his pounding heart to, in turn, calm his blood pressure and hopefully relieve the pounding headache.

“I’m fine,” he grunted, managing to stand up and sit on the side of the bed. “I just fell out of the bed.”

“You weren’t sleeping well, are you alright?” Clara asked, handing him a glass of water. “Steve came and got food for you from the cafeteria, but when we got up here you were out cold.”

Bucky pressed his fingers into his temples. “I just…remembered something…”

“Not good, then?”

Bucky looked up at her and shook his head. “No.”

She leaned back against the wall in front of him. “Want to talk about it?”

“How much do you know about—” He cut himself off as Steve entered the room, eyes curious and slightly worried. “Don’t worry about it,” he said quietly.

“You okay?” Steve asked from the doorway, thumbs jammed through his belt. “Heard you fall out of the bed from two doors down.”

“I’m fine.” He glanced down at his still-unmovable left arm. “Can we fix this?”

“I’ll go get Tony.”

“We don’t want you walking around for a little while still, just in case you lose your balance,” Clara explained as Steve left.

Bucky shifted onto the bed further, leaning back against the headboard and crossing one leg over the other. “In that file—did it mention anywhere towards the beginning about me going off the grid for a while?”

Clara frowned, but nodded. “They finally tracked you down. You were taking a bus to New York. That was your only mission here in the States that they mention. A private school up north.”

He scratched his chin, the stubble getting thick, and nodded. “I met a man in 1964. He helped me.” Bucky tapped his temple. “I don’t know how, but…”

“Do you know his name?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he shrugged. “He could barely help me then. And I wasn’t exactly friendly with his pal.”

“You never know, he could be more help now. It’s been fifty years.”

Bucky just shook his head again. “Doesn’t matter. I can do this without his help. I have been managing so far.”

Clara pressed her lips together to keep from pushing him any further. She sat back into the chair in the corner and crossed her legs. “You hungry? Once Tony fixes your arm I’ll—” Clara stopped short when her phone started ringing in her pocket.

“We’ll talk later, then,” he muttered, slightly thankful when Steve and Tony walked back in just as Clara left, murmuring into her phone, presumably to a patient in DC. Bucky pushed back this unfamiliar bitterness and focused on his visitors.

XXX

“Good to know you’re not offended,” Tony chirped, pulling the chair Clara had been sitting in closer to the bed so that he could work on Bucky’s arm.

“Who said I’m not offended?” Bucky muttered, looking Tony dead in the eye, causing him to freeze for a beat before Steve let out half a laugh.

“Buck, was that a joke?”

“I understand the…need,” Bucky clarified to Tony. He unbuttoned his shirt and, with a little difficulty, removed his metal arm from the sleeve so Tony could access the slots on the back of his shoulder.

“Don’t start getting a sense of humor,” Tony joked as he worked. “That role is taken. The sarcasm role has been filled, too.”

“Pity,” Bucky grunted as something sparked and a flick of pain shot up into his chest from him arm.

“Woops.” Tony adjusted the position of his tools and with a louder click Bucky’s arm flickered to life. “There we go.” He finished and closed the slats on the back of his shoulder.

“Thanks,” Bucky breathed, doing a mental check of the functionality, flexing his fingers.

Tony stood and pocketed his tools. “I’ll be preoccupied for the rest of the day,” Tony drawled, already heading for the door. “If you need anything else, ask…Banner.”

Steve and Bucky watched as Tony left, before sharing a glance. Bucky was suddenly overly aware of the room and how small it suddenly felt. He wished he could leave the room, or push the chair away from the bed at the very least. He suddenly didn’t want to be so close…so alone with Steve.

“How are you feeling?” Steve asked, pulling the chair away from the bed to put a little more distance between Bucky and himself before sitting down.

“You mean overall or the head?” Bucky asked.

Steve shrugged. “Either one.”

Bucky thought about that for a minute. How was he? He, who barely knew what was going on, who he was. Well, he was Bucky. He was born in the 1900s, fell in love with a girl, was forced into the army, turned into a weapon, and spent the last half a century killing people. But now? Now he was Bucky. He was no longer being controlled. By the government. By Hydra. No one. He could walk out of the building right now and do whatever he wanted.

“I’m managing,” he said simply, summing up all his thoughts into two words.

“I know Clara has probably already told you this, but I’m here for you, too, Buck,” Steve started, head dropping down to look at his hands in his lap. “When we were growing up, you were there for me even when I didn’t know I needed you—when I didn’t want to admit I needed anyone. Even the times you don’t remember.” He paused and looked back up at Bucky. “I was never able to be there for you. Not once.”

“Thank you, Steve, but I can get by on my own.”

“The thing is—you don’t have to,” Steve pressed quietly.

“My sister…”

“Rebecca?” Steve’s brows pulled together at the random thought. “I tried looking for her a couple years ago…”

“She’s gone,” Bucky said bluntly. “I saw her grave.”

“I’m sorry, Buck.”

“Connie looked after her for me.”

“How do you know?” Steve asked slowly.

“Clara gave me some of Connie’s diaries.” Bucky notices the realization cross Steve’s face.

“She told me she had them. Were they helpful?”

“Insightful, yes,” Bucky said. “I remembered a few things. I didn’t read all of them yet.” He wasn’t sure if he wanted to voice his next thoughts or not to Steve, unsure if he should feel that…ready yet. But a little voice in the back of his head said Bucky would, and suddenly the words were pouring out of his mouth. “The oldest entries were dated from the time we met until my funeral. The second diary…I just couldn’t. She started that one a couple years after when she met…”

“She moved on,” Steve supplied quietly.

“I’m not…”

“Take your time. You don’t need to experience everything right now. You have time,” Steve told him. “It was hard at first, trying to catch up on everything I’d missed. It was overwhelming. Eventually I just started making a list. As soon as people knew I wasn’t really….acclimated to this time period, they start listing off things I need to experience.” Steve laughed. 

“I don’t want to,” Bucky argued. “I want…”

“I know what you want,” Steve said so quietly it was almost inaudible. “But we can’t. We can’t go back to before…We can only live here and now and do what we can.”

Bucky looked away from Steve finally, a different picture of Steve coming to his mind. Happy, but sad. Excited, but crushed. Without living through the whole memory he knew what this was. When Steve found out about his draft.

“You were happy about me getting drafted.”

Steve pressed his lips into a line. “Not like that though, and you know it. That was all I wanted, but I knew it was the last thing you wanted.”

“Yeah, well,” Bucky grunted bitterly, adjusting his position on the bed. “Sorry I don’t remember more.”

“It’s just going to take time, Buck. You’ll be you no matter what you remember.”

“I don’t know what you expect from me. I might not be your Bucky,” he said a little more harshly than he intended.

Steve smiled sadly. “I’m just looking for my best friend.”

Bucky glanced over at Steve, then down at his lap where his hands, one flesh one metal, laid limp on his sweatpants. “I’m looking for him, too,” he whispered brokenly, almost embarrassed by how much he was revealing to this man. But he knew him…


	18. Chapter 18

The silence that had fallen over the room melted after twenty minutes when Steve asked, “Do you want me to find Clara?”

Bucky took a breath but didn’t respond. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and ran a hand through his hair. “She’s going back to DC,” he said finally. “I don’t want to bother her.”

“Whatever you need.” Steve shifted in his chair, the air around them beginning to lighten just a little. “I’ve got this friend, Sam—”

“The bird.”

Steve smiled. “Yeah.”

“He’s a war vet.”

He nodded slowly. “Might take a little convincing, but I think he’d be willing to talk—” He stopped at the deadpan look Bucky was throwing him, a look so unlike the Winter Soldier of the last few weeks, and more like the Bucky he knew, that it took him a little aback.

“C’mon, Steve, be realistic,” Bucky sighed.

“Alright, well, Sam is in DC regardless,” Steve murmured lightly. “Just come back, see if he can help you. If not, you’re more than welcome to stay with me—or we can find you your own place. And Clara is in the same building, if I’m not mistaken.”

“How about you? Are you ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?” a distant voice echoed in his head.

“Hell no,” he heard his own voice respond. “That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight—I’m following him.”

Yeah, follow him onto a train and right into a snowy crevasse…but the thought of continuing to be close to Clara…

“Okay.”

Steve blinked, surprised. He had been ready to try and convince Bucky to come with him back to DC. “Okay. I’ll talk to Tony and Clara—”

“No,” Bucky interrupted. “I’ll talk to Clara.” Steve face smoothed over and he looked up suddenly. “What?”

“Would you be up to meeting someone?”

Bucky’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Who?”

“You actually know her,” Steve smiled. “It’s a long story…”

XXX

“You should be fine now,” Clara stated happily. “Do you feel better? How is your head?”

Bucky leaned back in his chair and stared down at his eggs. They were in the cafeteria at Stark Tower. It had been two days since Steve had offered to have Bucky come stay with him, and he’d been busy ever since, leaving him alone most of the time with Clara or alone in his room. He’d made his way through the first diary of Connie’s again, this time starting from the very first entry in the book—dated long before they’d met. Bucky had even managed to start the second diary, struggling through passages about this new man and how happy Connie had felt for the first time in a long time.

“Better,” he said finally. “I’m remembering things all the time.”

“I wasn’t exactly sure,” Clara chuckled. “To be honest, I’ve never dealt with a case like yours. It’s really very interesting. You might not remember everything, but I have a feeling you’ll remember more than most of my clients with amnesia.”

Bucky grunted and picked up his fork and continued eating.

“It’ll be a shame when I go back home to DC,” she sighed, her mood light still. “You’ll have to keep in touch, let me know how you’re progressing.”

Bucky had remembered a lot in the two days since the surgery to remove Hydra’s implants. Most of his childhood with Steve was there, but in contrast, so were a lot of his missions with Hydra.

“Do you have plans?” Clara asked, despite Bucky’s lack of responses. She ripped off a piece of toast and dipped it in the little plastic cup of jelly. “I mean—are you going to stay here at Stark Tower?”

“We’ll see what happens.” Was all Bucky said, not wanting to tell her he planned to return to DC as well. He didn’t want her to feel obligated to treat him if she didn’t want to—she never had to in the first place, and there were others who needed her back in DC. Others who probably needed her because of him. “I have…loose plans.”

“Is Steve going back to DC, too?” she asked around a mouthful of toast. Bucky only nodded and dropped his fork on his plate loudly when he was finished. “Well, you could always come visit.”

Bucky met her eyes. “Maybe. I’ll think about it.” He gave her a smirk and she visibly fumbled, dropping the piece of toast in her hand. 

“You should smile more often,” she joked. “I think that’s the first time you have.”

“When are you going…” Bucky trailed off, unsure of how to ask.

“Back to DC?” she clarified for him. She brushed her hands off on a napkin and dropped it on the table, suddenly not looking at him. Bucky’s training kicked in and he knew she was nervous. Anxious. He immediately regretted asking. “I’m actually leaving tonight. I have a few last things to finish up with Pepper, but then I’ll be flying back.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” Clara asked, confused.

“For helping me. You didn’t have to go through all this trouble, especially after all the trouble I’ve caused…” he glanced around the room, eyes spending a few seconds longer on a flat screen in the corner that was replaying news footage from DC. “…literally everyone.”

Clara smiled. “Bucky. You have served this country—and while it might not be my country, it was my Grandmother’s. You’ve done plenty for this country.”

“And plenty to it,” he muttered.

“Maybe. But you’re here and you’re alive. You deserve to be treated as such. You’ve done terrible things, but find a way to atone—help people.”

Bucky had no response.

XXX

Steve hadn’t taken Bucky to his apartment when they got back to DC. Their plane landed and he immediately headed in the opposite direction of Steve’s place.

“Not to freak you out or anything, Steve, but we’re going to wrong way,” Bucky pointed out quietly.

Steve pressed his lips together briefly. “Does freak me out a little—”

“I had to stake out your apartment during my mission—”

“I remember,” Steve pressed gently. His face softened and his tone lightened. “She’s having a good day today. Thought I’d take you by since you seem to be having a good day, too.”

Bucky stared out the window, briefly remembering Steve mentioning a friend of his and wanting to take Bucky by. 

“Your days will get better,” Steve murmured.

“Like yours?” Bucky shot back, tone bordering on a jocular one. “Do you have bad days?”

“Every once in a while, yeah. Mostly when I become sedentary and just start to think and remember too much. It’ll get better.”

“When they first started brainwashing me, I remember. They tried a bunch of different things to see what would work, what would stick,” Bucky told him. “Dr. Ivchenko. Before they made the chair, he made me think I was still fighting with you in the war.”

“Really?”

“It was pretty convincing for a while.”

“Well, from what I understand, they made you think a lot of what you were doing was for the greater good.”

“Isn’t that what anyone thinks they’re doing?” Bucky challenged. “Everyone thinks they’re the good guys. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.”

Clara had said the same thing, Steve realized, wondering if she’d told Bucky that. Steve smiled and said, “You were just a freedom fighter for the wrong side.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Easy for you to say. You’ve always been on the same side.”

Steve chuckled as the car came to a stop. “There are some people out there who think I’m secretly working for Hydra.” He pushed open his door, handed a few bills to the taxi driver, and climbed out, waiting on the curb for Bucky to follow.

“Are you serious?” he demanded as soon as he was out of the car. “Has this country met you? I’ve seen that exhibit of you—have they?” Steve let Bucky rant as he led his friend down the street. “You were a symbol for this country—literally standing against everything Hydra stands for.”

“Calm down, Buck, it’s fine. I’m not Hydra. Come on.” He led Bucky into a tall, gray building.

Metal letters spelled out a company name on the wall behind the receptionist Steve stopped in front of. “I’ll fill out the check-in form,” The blond woman smiled at Steve. “She’s having a good day but we all know how quickly that can change.”

“Right, thank you,” Steve said, turning to Bucky and jerking his head in the direction of a hallway. “C’mon.”

They were silent as Steve led the way down the hall, up a flight of stairs, and halfway down another hall. He stopped in front of a plain brown door and turned back to Bucky, who had been following wordlessly.  
“If you don’t remember her, that’s okay,” he assured with a small smile. “She might not actually remember you.”

As Steve opened the door, Bucky’s eyes drifted over the nameplate on the wall outside the door. Something sparked in him and he felt…proud? He couldn’t name the emotion at remembering the name, but it felt good.

“Hey, Peg,” Steve greeted. 

The old woman in the bed looked away from the window and up at the tall blond man pulling a chair closer to her bed. Bucky hung back near the door. “Steve,” she grinned.

“Peggy Carter,” Bucky breathed, a small smile playing with the corners of his lips. He remembered her.

Peggy blinked at him a few times before her face contorted into a look of sheer shock. She glanced back at Steve, who only grinned back at her. “Sergeant Barnes?”

“One and only,” Bucky murmured, hands at his sides in a gesture Steve could only see as his old friend.

Peggy gestured frantically at the other chair by her feet. “Sit, sit,” she ordered quickly. She looked at Steve, “How?”

He licked his lips and pressed them together into a hard line. “It’s a long story.”

Peggy looked at him expectantly. “Well, I’m not getting any younger, here.”

Bucky snorted. Yes, he did indeed remember this woman.


	19. Chapter 19

Steve spent the next few minutes giving Peggy a very, very short abridged version of how Bucky had come to be sitting in her room. Bucky filled in the parts even Steve wasn’t sure of. It was a tense few minutes as they filled her in on everything. The experiments, the fall, the Russians, being the Winter Soldier, everything. Bucky knew her—knew she knew Howard Stark—and hoped Steve wouldn’t bring up specifics in his horrifying past.

“Steve, can you be a dear and go get me something to snack on?” Peggy asked when they finished.

Steve stood and smiled, understanding. “Sure. I’ll be back.” He left the room, closing the door softly.

“Steve has changed,” Peggy finally spoke after a few seconds of silence. She was playing with the rim of the plastic cup in her hands.

“You have no idea,” Bucky grumbled. “I may not remember everything, but I’m starting to remember enough.”

“Listen,” Peggy urged, looking at him now. “I knew Steve before the procedure—he was completely different.”

Bucky frowned slightly, unsure of what she meant. “I mean, I know that much—he looks completely different.”

But Peggy shook her head quickly. “No, Sergeant Barnes. The day Steve changed, really changed, was the day you fell from that train.” Bucky took a slow breath and looked away. “I found him in a destroyed bar bitching he couldn’t get drunk to numb the pain of losing his best friend.”

Bucky let out a breath of air, corners of his lips turning upwards at her bluntness. He didn’t know how to respond to that. But it so incredibly Steve. “I wish I’d been there.”

“We all wished that,” she murmured. “Whatever happened to you—whatever Hydra did—you are more than that.”

“I’ve killed a lot of people.”

“Rubbish,” Peggy scoffed. “So have I.”

“A lot of innocent lives.”

“It’s called war, James.” Peggy shook her head. “No killing of innocent life can be justified. Millions of men and women these days must live with this. You are not alone. You will never be alone.” She smiled sadly. “You have Steve.”

XXX

Steve returned shortly after and they left Peggy to rest.

“She has memory problems?” Bucky asked softly as they walked down the street away from the building.

“Not like you. She has Alzheimer’s disease.” They turned a corner and Steve stepped into the street to hail a cab. “She has problems with her memory sometimes. Sometimes we’ll be in the middle of talking and she’ll look at me like it’s the first time she’s seen me in 70 years. It’s hard for her sometimes.”

They were silent the rest of the way back to Steve’s apartment. It was getting dark out, the sun finally able to be obscured by the buildings. Steve led Bucky up the flights of stairs to a room Bucky didn’t know. He could have sworn Steve’s apartment was on the street side of the building.

Steve dropped his bag in a room, then returned to where Bucky was waiting in the kitchen.

“So what now?” Bucky’s tone had taken on an almost defeated one—a sad, bitter note.

“Well,” Steve started, glancing around his kitchen. “I was thinking I’d make something to eat, let you get settled in a bit—”

Bucky shook his head. “I mean what are we going to do about Hydra?”

Steve turned serious—a seriousness Bucky had associated with war. “We hunt them down. We take them out. One base at a time.”

“We tried that,” Bucky noted bitterly. “Remember? What has changed in 70 years that could be to our advantage this time around?”

Steve smirked. “We have technology—and with it, friends who are experts at using it.”

“We’ll see.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Steve asked lightly, pulling out a kettle.

“People could die,” Bucky suggested flatly.

“More people could die if we don’t take out Hydra. We just have to compromise where we can, and when we can’t, don’t.”

Bucky lifted an eyebrow and dropped into a stool at the kitchen island. “Peggy tell you that one?”

Steve smiled and leaned against the counter. “You know,” he started softly, “you’re really starting to feel like the Bucky I remember.”

“I don’t remember everything—there are a lot of missing pieces. I can feel it. But I remember enough, I think.” Bucky took the mug of tea Steve slid across the counter top. “It’s only been a few days since the surgery, but I feel like me. Clara helped the most, though.”

“Well, it’s good you’re feeling like yourself, that you’re remembering.”

Bucky gave him a dry look. “I don’t just remember the good, Steve.”

“Bucky, what you did all those years, that wasn’t you. They made you.”

“I know,” he stated, taking a sip of tea. “I still did it.”

Steve sighed. “It’ll take time, Buck.” He turned and rinsed his own cup in the sink. “Didn’t you say Clara was coming back to DC?”

“Yeah.” Bucky could feel himself closing off. The past few days he’d found himself opening up more and more to Steve, feeling more like Bucky, but he knew he had still done some horrifying things. As he remembered both the good and bad, he was having trouble coping with how his life had turned out. He missed Connie. His friends. He didn’t like how…different everything had become.

“Maybe you could stop by and see her one day.”

“I’m not going to bother her anymore.”

“Whatever you want, Buck,” Steve sighed. “What do you want for dinner?” 

Bucky pressed his lips together in thought. “You know that soup your ma used to make?”

Steve smiled down at the floor. “It might not taste the same.” Bucky just shrugged. “Alright. You’re room is down the hall to the left. It’s got its own bathroom if you want to shower. It’ll be a little while.”

Wordlessly, Bucky left the room to go shower, grateful to finally be alone with his thoughts. He dropped his own bag into the bed in the center of the room. The room itself was plain and mostly unfurnished. It had the bed and a single nightstand off to the side near the door.

He sat down slowly, pulling out the stack of Connie’s diaries that Clara had loaned him, along with a journal of his own that Clara had given him as she was leaving.

“I figured you could write down whatever you want—thoughts, memories, feelings—whatever you need. It might help you to take notes at the very least. Sort out your thoughts,” Clara told him, pushing the black faux leather book into his hands. “I wrote my cell number on the inside cover. If you ever need me, I can be reached there. Day or night.” 

Bucky just stared at her. They were standing at the entrance to Stark Tower. Pepper had called for a car for Clara to take to the airport where one of Stark’s private jets was waiting to fly her back to DC.

“Bucky, I mean it,” she insisted. He still said nothing. Clara sighed, watching a cab pull up. She hesitated in front of Bucky, hands fluttering in front of her. Instinct was to hug him, but logic told her not to. Second thought was to shake his hand, but she felt that was too formal. She settled for laying her hand on his arm, rightfully catching his attention. “Bucky.”

“I heard you,” he murmured. “Thank you. For everything.”

Clara changed her mind then, against every piece of psychological training she had gone though in her head saying this was a bad idea, she reached up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and gave him a quick hug. “Anytime, Bucky,” she smiled. “Like I said. Call me if you ever need me.”

And like that, she climbed into the taxi and was gone.


	20. Chapter 20

Bucky sat on the edge of the bed with his notebook in his lap, freshly showered and dressed, flipping through the book. She had given it to him several days ago, but the book was nearly full. He still had a good chunk of blank pages left, but a vast majority was filled with thoughts and memories.

Bucky had carefully marked the pages with good memories with a little star in the corner, bad memories with an X, and left his thoughts blank. He didn’t want to not write down every bad thing, every mission, because he didn’t want to ignore or forget that it had happened. Because it did, it was real.

He chewed the inside of his cheek, looking down at one memory with a little X in the corner. He had marked the margin with an arrow about halfway down the page. It was a memory of their brain-washing process, them reciting a string of words from a book.

He needed to find that book.

Bucky snapped his journal shut and quietly placed it in the top drawer of the nightstand. He felt ready to rejoin Steve out in the kitchen, smelling the food in the air. It still felt good to be able to make decisions. Doing what he wanted when he wanted.

Freedom.

“I was deciding whether or not I should come get you,” Steve explained when Bucky walked into the kitchen to see Steve eating out of a bowl at the kitchen island. “Figured you’d come out when you were ready. I left you a bowl on the counter.”

Bucky wordlessly picked up the bowl and began to fill it, the aroma so familiar his chest ached. Maybe this was a bad idea, he thought absently and he turned and sat down next to Steve at the island counter.

Steve was turned away from the counter, angled towards the TV in the other room, the news flashing across the screen. He ate his own meal slowly, watching whoever was speaking carefully.

The first spoonful was intense. He remembered the taste so well. A simple soup from the 30s could help him remember so much. Sensory memory is probably going to be key, Clara had told him once. A smell or taste can trigger memories.

“It’s taking investigators some time to search through all the files—it could be months before actions can be taken against those responsible for some of the—the, quite frankly horrible things described in these files,” a news reporter was saying. 

“They mention me?” Bucky asked quietly, refusing to look.

“Not for what you’d think,” Steve laughed humorlessly.

“We mentioned briefly earlier on in the segment that war hero James Buchanan Barnes, ally of Steve Rogers aka Captain America, has been mentioned in depth in these leaked files from SHIELD,” one of the newscasters was saying.

“Sergeant Barnes was the only Howling Commando to give his life for his country—or so we thought,” the other chimed in. “Barnes was never actually listed as killed. He was only listed as missing, although his family and friends opted for an empty casket funeral when his belongings were shipped home.”

“They’re talking about me like I didn’t just destroy the country’s capitol,” Bucky said bitterly, focusing on his soup still.

Steve glanced back at him, but said nothing.

“As it turns out, Barnes was alive—captive in the hands of Russian Hydra agents,” the newscaster said gravely. She turned to her male co-host. “How awful that must have been.”

“According to the leaked files, Barnes was subjected to horrific and—quite frankly—barbaric forms of what can only be described as torture,” he said. “But the list of horrifying missions these agents forced Barnes to commit is lengthy—and his targets? High profile political figures all over the world.”

“A few of which,” the female broke in, “include the parents of Tony Stark, better known now as Iron Man, and even one of our own presidents.”

“There we go,” Bucky muttered, waving his spoon towards the TV. “Let’s talk about that stuff.”

“They aren’t blaming you,” Steve said gently. “Everyone is pretty understanding that you were made to do it.”

“It’s just passing blame.”

“You don’t blame the dog in a dog fight—they’re being forced to fight, Buck,” Steve reasoned. “It’s the people, the owners that are responsible. You can’t hold someone responsible for something they are forced to do against their will.”

“…what’s terrifying is how much this group—Hydra—is responsible for,” they were saying now. “They are terrorists. And they’ve been under our noses all along.”

“It brings up a good question,” the male started. “Who is Hydra? Who do we trust? Captain America? The Avengers?”

“Captain America’s very own childhood friend was, as the leaks state, the ‘fist of Hydra’. He killed Stark’s own parents, and no one knew until now. Why? The internet has been abuzz this week since this news was released, several conspiracy theorists have hypothesized that even Captain America could have been Hydra all along.”

Steve turned off the TV and spun around in his chair before leaving it entirely to refill his bowl. The new silence in the apartment was deafening.

“They’re trying to discredit you.”

“They can try.”

“After all you’ve done. In the war—”

“Controversy sells in the media these days. Not the honest truth. War, controversy, things that cause people to react the quickest.” Steve leaned back against the counter, facing Bucky now, and continued eating. “If I’ve learned one thing since I woke up, it’s that the media has changed. Take it with a grain of salt.”

“They’ll come for me.” Bucky leaned back in his stool and pushed his bowl away.

Steve gave him a look and a raised eyebrow, taking Bucky’s bowl and refilling it for him. Who knows when his last home cooked meal was? “They can try.”

“But—”

“The Avenger’s won’t allow it. Not if you don’t want to.”

“I’m not above the law,” Bucky argued tiredly. 

Steve hesitated. “We’ll just lay low, see how all this plays out in the next few weeks. I’ll talk to some people tomorrow, see if we can pull a team together to get started on Hydra. Better to start now while they’re scrambling than later when their hiding.”

Bucky just continued eating in silence.

XXX

Bucky didn’t sleep well that night, waking up every so often at the slightest noise. So he was wide awake when Steve woke up at 6 and left the house. Bucky fiddled around in his notebook, jotting down a few things Steve had told him the night before. It’s not your fault. Bellow that he wrote, but never forget it happened. Atone.

Bucky’s head jerked up when the door opened nearly two hours later and he heard Steve return to the apartment, a second set of footsteps coming in behind him. He pulled out a clean pair of jeans and a button down Clara had helped him pick out. 

He walked down the short hallways slowly, listening to the hum of the two male voices in the main rooms, something releasing in his stomach at the notion that is wasn’t, in fact, Clara in the apartment like he’d feared. He wasn’t ready for that yet.

“Hey Buck,” Steve greeted calmly. “This is Sam.”

Bucky froze seeing the other man standing rigid in the kitchen.

“We’ve met,” Sam said slowly.

Apologize for breaking his toys and I’m sure he’ll apologize, too, Clara had told him. They stared at each other for a second. “I’m…sorry…” Bucky said after a little mental struggle.

Steve stepped forward, “Bucky,” he started, shaking his head.

“No,” Bucky sighed. “I need to start somewhere.” He looked up at Sam. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t in control, I didn’t know what I was doing, but it doesn’t excuse that it happened or that I did it and I’m sorry.”

Sam closed his eyes and held up his hand for Bucky to stop. “I appreciate it, but I understand.”

Bucky shot Steve a look, Steve just smiled and shrugged, arms crossed. “Why?” Bucky demanded.

“I’m not saying everything is okay, I’m still pissed you broke my gear—”

“Tony fixed it,” Steve interjected.

“—but I can understand the situation enough to know it wasn’t your choice. But like you said,” Sam grinned, “you still did it, so I appreciate the apology.”

Bucky walked past them both and stepped into the kitchen. “I have a feeling that won’t be the case for everyone,” he muttered.

“No,” Sam agreed, “but all you can do is try. It’s up to others how they handle it. The main objective is to help you move on and deal with all that’s happened.”

“I’m working on it,” Bucky muttered.

“And it’s going to take time,” Steve said, pulling a glass out of the cabinet and handing it to Bucky, who looked at it for a second before smirking. “What?”

“This is a real step up,” he said, holding up the glass with a smile. “You’re ma had those old chipped china cups that were only ever used on special occasions.”

“Like Christmas,” Steve laughed. “Dixie Cups.”

Sam looked between them, confused. “The paper cups?”

“Only the best,” Bucky said, filling his glass with tap water.

“We didn’t have much growing up,” Steve explained.

Sam sat down in the stool at the kitchen island. “But Bucky is remembering?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “I remember…most things.”

“Well then, how about where we start with hunting down Hydra?” Sam asked.

“Hold on, before that, I need to contact a few more people, see who else we could get to help out,” Steve stated. “The more eyes we have the better.”

“The more likely it is someone could get killed,” Bucky argued, flesh hand gripping the counter tightly in an attempt to control his emotions, his other hand whirred quickly as he flexed the fingers.

“Occupational hazard,” Sam told him, leaning back in his stool. “You telling me you didn’t think you’d possibly die when you enlisted?”

Something inside Bucky snapped a little and he felt his adrenaline spike a little. “I didn’t enlist,” he snapped.

Steve put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Regardless, no one is going to come with us unless they know what we’re up against. They’ll know what’s on the line. They can decide for themselves.”

“Well, we already know one Russian who would be willing to help us,” Sam noted.

“I left her a voicemail already, so we’ll see.” Steve leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms.

“I know what we need to do first,” Bucky told them. “There’s a book we need to find, first. I just don’t know where it is.”

“What’s in it?” Steve asked hesitantly.

“Nothing good,” Bucky mumbled, putting his empty glass in the sink.


	21. Chapter 21

Bucky spent the next few days cooped up in the 2 bedroom apartment, watching the news and catching up on things. Steve had given him a laptop and a quick rundown of navigating the internet. While he hadn’t been completely new to the technologies of this time—Hydra had kept him up to date on the necessities of communication—the internet wasn’t something he remembered ever using.

He’d been working his way through history, letting his memory connect with some of the more negative notable moments in history.

It was early, Bucky had lost track of time, and the sun was just barely peaking over the horizon out the living room window. He was on the couch, feet up on the edge of the coffee table, computer in his lap. A thud on the couch next to him jerked him from the article he was reading about the space race.

“I’m going for my run. You’re coming with me,” Steve smirked. Bucky glanced down at the pair of sweatpants that had landed next to him. “I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t think you can keep up, Old Man.”

“’Old Man’?” Bucky repeated, pushing the laptop onto the table and standing up. He snatched the sweatpants off the couch and headed for his room. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, Pal. You sure you’re ready to finally have someone who can beat your ass? I doubt Wilson is much of a challenge for this you.”

“Yeah, we’ll see,” Steve watched after him, glad he’d caught Bucky on one of his good, feels-like-the-old-Bucky kind of days.

Bucky quickly changed shirts, throwing on a dirty t-shirt and the sweatpants Steve had loaned him. He glanced down at the journal Clara had given him and felt a short pang in his chest. He had a page or two left, but hadn’t written anything in a while and it was worrying him. He’d thrown himself into the research so hard because he was worried he wouldn’t remember something important.

“Ready?” Steve asked with a grin when he came back out to the living room.

“I don’t know if you are,” Bucky retorted, leading the way out the door. As inconspicuously as he could, he rushed past Clara’s apartment door on the first floor and rounded the corner.

When they got to the park that Steve usually did his morning runs in, he paused. “Want a head start?” he asked.

“I was about to ask you,” Bucky retorted before he bolted down the path.

“That’s cheating!” he heard Steve call after him. He vaguely remembered a time when they were kids when Steve did the same thing, knowing Bucky could easily catch up to him and eventually lap him. A new memory, he mused, slightly pleased.

“On your left,” he breathed out as he passed a man jogging in a sweater.

He heard Steve not too far behind him now say the same thing. He was catching up fast.

“Oh hell no!” the man—Sam, Bucky realized—screamed after them both. “I am not going to put up with this!”

Confused, Bucky pushed on, hearing Steve getting closer. He pushed even harder, managing to gain a little more distance between the two. Bucky managed to keep ahead of Steve, just barely, for the next lap and a half. It was when they lapped Sam when Steve finally caught up and managed to gain a small lead.

Ten miles. Sam had stopped at seven and dropped onto a bench downing water as he watched the two men race like children. Steve had managed to hold a good ten foot lead for the rest of the run, stopping by Sam, barely panting at all.

Bucky slowed to a stop, visibly breathing harder than Steve. “You cheated,” he said between breaths.

Sam shrugged. “You’ll learn to accept it. Not all of us are super soldiers.”

Bucky shook his head, taking a deep breath to steady his breathing and slow his heart. “Not all of us got the good stuff.”

Sam lifted an eyebrow. “You get the off brand?”

“The Russian attempt, we think,” Steve chimed in.

Movement in the trees behind Sam caught Bucky’s eye and, unwillingly, he felt himself slip into the Winter Soldier habits. A man was watching them, but darted away when he noticed Bucky staring him down.

Bucky tensed, mentally calculating where the could be going, but before he could dart after him, a hand landed on his shoulder and jarred him out of his thoughts.

“You okay, Buck?” Steve asked, eyebrows pulled together.

Bucky blinked, feeling his face relax. “T—there was a man in the woods,” he explained. “He was watching us. He took off.”

“Probably trying to catch a glimpse of the great Captain America,” Sam scoffed, waving it away.

“At seven in the morning?” Bucky muttered, narrowing his eyes at the trees wishing Hydra had given him improved vision in all the torture they’d done to him.

“It’s been a crazy few weeks,” Steve agreed. “Might just be a reporter.”

“Maybe.” Bucky couldn’t shake the bad feeling he was getting. He just hoped Steve was right, and that Hydra wasn’t about to resurface in his life. Not when he was just finally starting to piece together some semblance of a life.

“I gotta head out,” Sam announced, standing up. “I have a few meetings down at the VA I don’t wanna be late for.” He looked over to Bucky. “Feel free to join us any time. You don’t have to speak, just listen. You’ll find there are a lot of people you could probably relate to.”

“Unlikely,” Bucky grumbled. Steve shot him a disapproving look. “Sorry, thanks.”

The paranoia didn’t let up as Steve and Bucky walked back to the apartment. He glanced around them as they walked, but the streets were filling with people and cars quickly as people got started on their day.

“Bucky, it’s ok,” Steve told him, noticing him checking rooftops and glaring down every alley they passed.

“The minute I let my guard down is gonna be the day they drag my ass back with them,” he muttered, stopping when he saw movement down an alley, sighing when a bird flew out from behind a dumpster.

Steve pressed his lips together but kept quiet. As far as Bucky had come in the last two weeks, he was still…damaged. As any soldier would be, going through what Bucky had been through. But Steve knew the paranoia would last a while. He just hoped, for Bucky’s sake, that the nightmares would stop so Bucky could finally get a good night’s sleep.

Steve led the way into their apartment building.

“Oh, hey Clara,” Steve greeted. The dark haired girl stood in front of her apartment door, locking the knob. She dropped her keys into her purse and looked up.

“Hello, Steve,” she greeted. Bucky rounded the corner, looking over his shoulder. “Bucky?”

Bucky froze at the familiar British voice, whipping around to meet Clara’s big brown eyes. Shit.

“I didn’t know you were visiting Steve,” she noted lightly. “Did you just arrive?”

Steve glanced between them. “Visiting? He’s been here since I came back. He’s staying with me. I thought he told you.”

“Nope,” Bucky ground out, popping the ‘p’ and tilting his head to glare at Steve. “You haven’t changed in some areas at all.”

Clara laughed. “It’s ok.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to run, but if you want, I’d really like to sit and talk with you to catch up and see how you’re doing.”

Bucky floundered.

“I have a few sessions today—SHIELD has a temporary medical wing rented in hospital over in Arlington, but I’m free this afternoon,” she offered.

“Why don’t you come up to the apartment for dinner,” Steve suggested, ignoring the intense, but familiar glare Bucky was giving him. “408C.”

“That’d be great. Bucky?” She looked at him, eyebrows raised, clearly waiting for an OK from him.

Bucky sighed and gave a half hearted smile. “Yeah. Great.”

“I’ll see you then,” she exclaimed, way too excited in Bucky’s opinion.

Steve and Bucky lingered, watching as Clara practically bounced out into the street and climbed into a cab. One last wave, and she was gone.

Bucky rounded on Steve.

“What?” he asked innocently.

“I hate you.”

Steve just smiled and led the way up the stairs to the apartment. He could feel Bucky glaring at him the whole way into the living room.

“I don’t know why you don’t just talk to her—why you don’t want to talk to her,” Steve said finally with a defensive shrug, filling a glass at the kitchen sink. “She offered so clearly she wants to.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Bucky snapped.

“Then you would have said no,” Steve smirked, downing his glass and refilling it.

Bucky rolled his eyes and dropped into a stool. “Geez, what happened to that little kid from Brooklyn who couldn’t talk to girls?” he moaned.

“I don’t know—what happened to that kid from Brooklyn who could?” Steve challenged.

“He’s being hunted down by Hydra.”

Steve dropped his glass into the sink and gave Bucky a gentle look. “Nothing will happen to her.”

Bucky shook his head, eyes wide, eyebrows raised. “Don’t promise that Steve,” he warned. “Don’t say that—you know what’s not true.”

“No, but the safest place she can be is with us.”

Bucky had no argument. “I just don’t want her involved.”

“Sorry to say this, Pal, but that ship has sailed.”

“Maybe,” Bucky admitted, remembering the day she stole him from that hospital. “But I want to do what I can to keep her away from Hydra. She’s—” He stopped, biting the inside of his cheek, lips pursed as he tried to find the right word.

“She’s what?”

“Special.”

Steve furrowed his brow and leaned back against the sink. “What do you mean?”

“She’s special,” Bucky repeated softly, staring down at the marble countertop, but his eyes focused on memories in his head. “She’s like the one thing I have that Hydra hasn’t touched—that Hydra hasn’t ruined.” He looked up at Steve. “I don’t wanna lose her. Not like I lost Connie.”

“She can’t be Connie, though.”

“I know,” Bucky laughed humorlessly. “She and Connie are so different. But she has a few of the same qualities. I can’t even pretend she is Connie. Times when I thought she was, she would speak and break the illusion immediately.”

Steve sighed. “Well, I’m here for you. I won’t let anything bad happen to her. Not if I can help it.”

“And if you can’t help it?”

“Then we give ‘em hell. War It’s what we were made for, right?”

“Yeah,” Bucky drawled, unable to argue with that.

“We’ll deal with what happens when—or even if—it happens.” Steve headed for his room, but stopped and spun around. “So, is this gonna be a date? Cuz that would be awkward—”

Bucky just gave him a dry look. “Go shower.”

Steve laughed and left the room.


	22. Chapter 22

“We boiled everything,” Bucky muttered, head in his chin at the kitchen island as he watched Steve flit around, hovering over several pots and pans on the stove.

“Uh huh,” Steve said distractedly.

“You’re cooking.”

“Uh huh.” Steve looked over his shoulder quickly. “Hydra teach you to be that observant?”

Bucky glared at him. “What are you making? Is it any good?” he asked hesitantly.

“Chicken Parmesan, and you’ll have to decide yourself.” He slid some breaded chicken breasts into a glass dish and coated it with a sauce from one of the pots on the stove. “So what did Hydra feed you?” he asked out of curiosity.

“An IV,” Bucky replied bluntly, watching Steve dump some cheese on top of it all and slide the whole thing into the oven. “Where did you learn to cook?”

Steve shrugged and wiped his hands off on a dishrag hanging from a drawer. “A lot of places, I guess. Pepper taught me a bit whenever I would stay at the tower—Tony convinced her all I ate was boiled potatoes.” He paused and pursed his lips in thought. “Natasha was a help. Then there are plenty of stuff online.”

“Natasha?”

Steve gave Bucky a look. “She gave me some cookbooks. Let me find what I liked. Cooking is kind of easy to figure out.”

Bucky grunted and pushed away from the counter when there was a knock at the door.

“You can still back out of this,” Steve joked, heading to let Clara in.

Bucky said nothing but walked into his room to get his notebook. He was both dreading and excited to see Clara again. A feeling in the pit of his stomach told him something awful was preparing to unleash itself, and he didn’t want her around when that happened.

“I hope it’s okay I join you for dinner,” she said when Bucky walked back out into the kitchen. She was sitting in his usually seat at the kitchen island, Steve standing against the counter, kettle on the stove behind him.

“It’s fine,” Steve pressed. He glanced down at the timer. “It’s gonna be a little while before it’s done, though.” The kitchen was silent, Bucky staring down at his journal, Clara, watching him carefully, and Steve looking between them both, taking a few seconds too long to get it. “I’ll be in my room until then.” He quickly left the kitchen, a quiet click as his bedroom door closed.

Clara cleared her throat and watched the kettle steam lightly. “How have things been?” she began. “Have you been figuring out who you are?”

Bucky nodded, managing to pull away from the counter to get a mug and a tea bag down from a cabinet. “I’ve been feeling like…me for a while now, I guess.”

“More good days than bad?” 

The kettle began to whistle and he pulled it off the stove, filled the mug, and then set it in front of her. “More bad nights. Nightmares.”

“Do you wake screaming?” she guessed.

“Steve says I do.”

“Sugar?” she asked, dipping her bag in the hot water. “What do you have nightmares about?”

“The war. Hydra. Lots of things that would give anyone nightmares.” He dug through a cabinet quickly and pulled out a bag of sugar from the back, opening a drawer quickly and handing her a clean spoon.

“You seem to know where everything is—how long have you been staying with Steve?”

Bucky sighed and ran a hand through his hair, his eyes avoiding hers. “You shouldn’t be continuing to let me bother you.”

“Loose plans, huh?” she chided. “Bucky I wouldn’t offer to help if I didn’t want to. You’re not bothering me in the least. Have you been having nightmares since you got here?”

“Something or someone is going to come after me and you’re going to be involved and you’re going to get hurt,” Bucky ranted tiredly, ignoring her and rocking on his heels, hands gripping the countertop of the island.

“No I’m not—you can’t know something like that will happen.” Clara furrowed her brow, slight anger in her eyes.

“It always does,” he said dejectedly, finally meeting her eyes. He pressed his lips together. “It always ends in a fight.”

“Oh, Bucky,” she sighed. “It’s just going to take time for you to trust that nothing is going to happen to me or anyone else. And even if, God forbid, something did happen, it is not your fault.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he admitted. “I lost my family, I lost Steve, I lost my own chance at a normal life, and I lost Connie. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

Clara placed her hand on top of his. “I’m right here, and I’m going to help you find a way to get your chance at a normal life back.” She offered a smile when his face softened. “Now, tell me, what was it like growing up with Captain America?”

Bucky laughed. “When I started to remember stuff from growing up, seeing the exhibit gets funnier and funnier,” he chuckled. “I mean, he’s supposed to be this big, tough, symbol of freedom right? Well, one time, he sprained an ankle putting on his underwear.”

Clara choked on her tea, trying to keep her laughing quiet, but the stove began to buzz and Steve emerged from his room.

“If you thought I couldn’t hear, you’re wrong, and I’m about to embarrass you, Pal,” Steve said calmly, clapping Bucky on the back as he passed to take the food out of the oven.

XXX

“He has a personality,” Clara stated. After dinner they had all spent hours sitting in the living room talking, everything from the retelling of childhood stories to old war stories. Her eyes flicked from Bucky back to Steve. “It’s very different from when we met. Less calculating and meticulous and angry. It’s more…human.”

“Gee, thanks,” Bucky said sarcastically. He had let her go through his journal, noting just how much he had remembered in such a short period of time. She assured him it was great, and that not remembering many new things probably wasn’t a bad thing—just that he wasn’t encountering anything to trigger them to resurface.

“No, I mean, you feel more like an individual!” Clara defended.

“No no,” Bucky held up a hand. “I understand.” He looked at Steve. “Is this generation all this openly hateful?”

Steve laughed and shrugged. “You should meet the rest of the Avengers. I think you’d like Thor.”

“Oh, God,” Bucky muttered. “Does he really go by Thor?”

“He’s a god.”

Bucky furrowed his brows. “That’s quite a compliment. Few of your back up dancers back in the day use to have similar feelings towards you.”

“No,” Clara exclaimed, laughing, “literally the man is a god.”

Bucky shot Steve a look. “I really have no idea how you handle some of this shit.”

Clara laughed and stood, stretching. “I do need to go. I have some early morning meetings again tomorrow.”

“I’ll walk you down to your apartment,” Bucky muttered, pulling on his shoes.

“It’s just downstairs,” Clara began to argue, but hushed when she saw the look on Bucky’s face. Whatever would comfort his fears. “Thank you again for dinner,” she said to Steve as she collected her things. “It was amazing.”

“Anytime,” Steve said with a nod, watching the two leave the apartment.

Bucky and Clara walked down the stairs silently, Bucky’s eyes searching out into the street.

“See,” Clara started, “I told you—”

“There was a guy this morning,” Bucky cut her off. “He was watching us from the trees while Steve and I were running. Steve and Sam brushed it off as a reporter…”

“But you don’t think so,” Clara finished, unlocking her door. 

“No,” Bucky shook his head. “I’ve had a really bad feeling ever since.”

Clara dug through her purse and pulled out a familiar knife. The one he had dropped on her coffee table the very first time they met. “I’ve been carrying it around for protection. I’ve never used a gun, and if someone got too close to me it’d be useless anyways, but I can run.”

A little bit of relief trickled into Bucky’s mind, knowing she wasn’t entirely defenseless and wasn’t entirely blind to the possibility of something happening.

“Thank you.”

“Just know, I’ll be ok.”

“The guy—”

Clara shook her head. “Just be on your toes for a little while. Good chance it could have been someone curious about Captain America—everyone knows where he does his daily routines.” She rolled her eyes. “But with all that’s happened, I wouldn’t also blow it off. You be careful, too, ok? But don’t let this get you down. Less bad days than good, okay?”

“Right.” He offered a small smile, and watched her enter he apartment, waiting for the deadbolt to lock before he returned to his own.


	23. Chapter 23

Bucky decided he needed a routine. He got up and went on a run with Steve four times a week, letting himself catch up on sleep the other three mornings for when he spent sleepless nights avoiding nightmares by reading articles on the internet.

He’d gotten a kick out of his own Wikipedia page, laughing at the content that someone had decided was important enough to put into the page, like his ability to meet girls and habit of dragging Steve along to suffer with a girl who really didn’t want anything to do with him. Less amusing and more informative was the very short page dedicated to his sister.

Another part of his routine was, on Tuesdays he met Clara at some little coffee shop she liked in DC. Not that he would admit it to anyone, but he looked forward to that day the most.

Bucky tried to feel calmer, but there was one other occasion during his lunch with Clara that he thought he saw someone watching them. That time, though, he had taken off after the person, managing to trail them for several blocks before he lost them. A tiny voice in the back of his head cursed not having Hydra’s eyes in his ears helping him find his target.

Clara assured him that his jumpiness was not entirely misplaced—of course Hydra could be looking for him. She just didn’t want him to be entirely uncomfortable and unwilling to relax at some point during the day.

“I’ve been to this place once or twice, with Natasha. It’s pretty public, open,” Steve said conversationally as he and Bucky walked to meet Clara for lunch one Tuesday. 

“You keep bringing that dame up and I’m gonna start thinking you’ve moved on from Carter,” Bucky smirked, shooting him a glance between his covert looks around the street.

“Just a friend,” Steve muttered. “She went off the grid after everything was released from SHIELD. Haven’t been able to get in contact. I think she went to meet up with Clint and Fury in Europe.”

Bucky stopped walking, face contorted in confusion. “Fury?”

“What?” Steve stopped and looked back at him.

“Director of SHIELD? I thought he was…I had…”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Between you and me, he’s a lot less what you think he is.” Steve smiled and the very clear relief that emanated from Bucky in that moment of realization. He went from visibly bothered to almost giddy, for lack of a better word. He perked up and Steve felt a warmth of happiness for his friend.

“I failed a mission,” Bucky stated, a small smile on the corners of his lips. 

“Maybe you’re just not as good as you think you are,” Steve said sarcastically, continuing down the road.

“Hey, Pal, I dunno where you’d be today if I hadn’t been such a sharpshooter back in the day,” Bucky argued. “I remember saving your red white and blue ass more than a couple times when you weren’t paying attention.”

“I wasn’t not paying attention,” Steve laughed. “I was busy with other people.”

“Sure, sure,” Bucky waved, “whatever you say, Pal.”

“I’ve thought about reaching out to Agent Hill to see if we can get some help with finding Hydra’s holes. She’s working for Stark now, so she’ll be easier to find than Fury.”

Bucky only grunted in response, still basking in the thought that one of his missions hadn’t been completed like he thought. One less person’s blood on his hands was a small comfort, but still had a big impact.

“You look happy today,” Clara noted as the boys sat down at the table. It was their usual table on the corner of the patio where Bucky could sit with his back to a brick wall, eyes able to see down both streets.

“Good day,” Bucky muttered, watching Steve look over the menu.

A waitress passed by and took Steve and Bucky’s orders, telling Clara that her tea would be right out.

“So, how have you been, Steve?” Clara asked, leaning into her elbow on the table. “What does Captain America do when he’s not on missions?”

“Training, mostly,” he chuckled. “And reading. Lately I’ve been trying to get in touch with the team, though. I’ve been finding trustworthy SHIELD agents, trying to put together what SHIELD was intended to be—what it was when Howard Stark and Peggy founded it.”

“That’s quite the task,” Clara commented. “Well, if you need medical, you know where we are.” Steve just smiled. She turned to Bucky who was nonchalantly scanning the area. He pulled his baseball cap down lower and scratched the back of his neck. “How are you doing? Adjusting to a routine?”

Bucky pressed his lips together and nodded. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“He gets stir crazy sometimes,” Steve noted.

“I do not, I’m fine,” Bucky defended.

“The pacing thing you do sometimes?”

“I can’t exactly go wherever I want, yet, Steve.”

“I know—”

“I think I’m still on some of the government’s wanted lists.”

“I think I saw an episode of America’s Most Wanted about you,” Clara agreed. Both the boys stopped and stared at her. She sighed. “It was a TV years ago…nevermind.”

“Well, we’re almost ready to go take on Hydra again,” Steve announced.

“Really?” Bucky breathed.

“That’s great!” Clara exclaimed. Their chatter quieted while the waitress brought their food. “Do you know where you’re going to start?”

Steve glanced at Bucky. “Buck has given us a few places to start, namely Siberia. It’s the last place he was held before they brought him here for the attack on SHIELD.”

“Ok, so you have a starting point,” Clara confirmed before taking a bite of her sandwich.

“Yeah, but it’s Hydra,” Bucky muttered around a mouthful of his own sandwich. “Cut off one head, two more takes its place.” Clara chuckled at his fake German accent.

“You know, Nat and I had a run-in with Zola not too long ago.”

Bucky choked on his food, wide eyes on Steve. “How?”

“Fury gave me a flashdrive before he died. Led us to Camp Lehigh.”

“Haven’t been there in….decades,” Bucky mumbled.

“Camp Lehigh?” Clara asked quietly, wanting to be included. “Who’s Zola?”

“We trained at Camp Lehigh for the war,” Bucky explained with a softness Steve hadn’t yet seen from him in some time. “Zola was the one who experimented on me.”

“His consciousness was on a computer. There was a fake building. It was where SHIELD started.”

“Please tell me—” Bucky began harshly, but Steve held up a hand.

“He’s gone. Permanently. The building was destroyed.”

Bucky relaxed, a small part of him a little angry that he didn’t get to end the bastard himself. “Takes the list of people to go after down a bit.”

“No, Buck. We aren’t killing anyone,” Steve scolded.

“I’m not gonna kill anyone,” Bucky defended quietly, but firmly.

A high pitched screech blasted through the street and people all around the trio jumped, ducking their heads and covering their ears. The silence that followed was eerie and dense. Bucky and Steve stood up looking up and down the street.

A crackling, static noise filled the air, followed by a voice.

“Longing…”

Bucky froze. No.


	24. Chapter 24

“Rusted…”

“What is that? Where is that coming from?” Steve demanded, looking around frantically.

“Bucky?” Clara stood and quickly rounded the table to get to him.

“Seventeen…”

Bucky’s hands jerked up to his ears and he curled in on himself a little. “No!” he yelled. “This is too public…”

“Daybreak…”

“Bucky, what’s going on?” Clara reached up to push the cap off his head but he jerked away, frantically looking for a direction to run. “I don’t understand what they’re saying.”

“Someone has the book,” he ground out, looking to Steve. He let out a yell, unable to think anymore. He tried to latch onto something, anything, any thought to prevent this from happening.

“Furnace…”

“Bucky, Bucky look at me.” Clara tried to pry his hands away from his face. “Bucky, what book?”

Steve was closer now, “the book you told me we had to find first?”

“Nine…”

Another yell. People were running, shouting in the streets, confused. Bucky jerked up straight and looked around. He had to get out of there. This was too public. People could die. 

“Benign…”

“Bucky!” Steve called, drawing his attention.

“Siberia,” he breathed. “Hydra.”

“Hydra got it first?” Steve tried to clarify, but Bucky was too scattered, too frantic. He took off down the street, but Steve and Clara were close behind him. “Bucky, stop!”

“Homecoming…”

No matter how far or how fast Bucky ran, it seemed he couldn’t escape the echoes of the voice. He wasn’t going to make it. He stopped suddenly, frantically looking for a plan B and finding none. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered as Steve and Clara caught up, Clara clearly more winded than the super soldier.

“One…”

“I’m sorry,” Bucky told Steve.

“Buck, what—”

“Freight car…”

Bucky’s hands dropped to his sides and his face smoothed out, muscles relaxing. His mind, blank. He waited patiently.

“What’s wrong?” Clara demanded. “What’s going on?”

“Something’s wrong,” Steve muttered.

“Good Morning, Soldier…”

“Ready to comply,” he muttered in Russian.

“Hey!” Clara snapped, hand reaching out to touch his shoulder. Bucky’s metal hand reached up in the blink of an eye to bat her away roughly, but Steve caught his arm, shocked by the amount of force that was behind the hit.

“Bucky, stop,” Steve warned, head tilted down as he stared down his best friend.

“Attack.”

Bucky ripped his arm out of Steve’s grip, wound back, and whipped his fist back at Steve’s face. Steve managed to dodge, stumbling back.

“Run,” Steve yelled to Clara, who had managed to put some feet of distance between her and Bucky when he had moved to hit her. “Run, Clara, get out of here!”

When Clara darted away, Steve turned his focus back to Bucky, who was running at him again. He caught Bucky’s next hit and knocked him off balance. Catching him off guard, Steve landed a punch to the side of Bucky’s head, sending him flying across the pavement.

“Kill him.”

Bucky flipped up off the ground and sprinted back at Steve, letting out a feral growl when Steve met him half way, catching both his arms. In the back of his head he was grateful Bucky was unarmed. “Buck,” Steve ground out against the force his friend was exerting. “I don’t know what they’re telling you, but you need to snap out of it.”

Bucky made no inclination he was even hearing Steve at this point. Punch after punch, attempts to throw Steve off balance, Bucky was like an animal at this point, Steve realized. Maybe it was because they’d removed Hydra’s tech, maybe it was because he hadn’t trained in however many weeks it had been. Whatever it was, Bucky was sloppier than when they fought on the bridge.

Bucky snapped Steve out of his thoughts when he landed a hit to the side of Steve’s head, knocking him away. He recovered quickly and bounced up to grab Bucky’s flesh arm, spin, and pull the man over his shoulder, throwing him into a brick side of the building.

“I’m sorry,” Steve muttered, watching Bucky shakily get to his feet. He took Bucky’s head and smacked it into the brick wall. “I’m sorry.”

Effectively unconscious, Bucky hit the ground with a thud. Steve’s eyes snapped to the sky when his ears popped and the sound of a chopper approached.

“I did not anticipate you coming along with him today, Captain,” a thick accented voice yelled from across the street. “That was a miscalculation on my part.”

Steve ground his teeth at the three black-clad men standing across the street from him. The one who had spoken had an unconscious, dark haired girl slung over his shoulders, a hand and a foot already twisted into a rope ladder hanging from the helicopter. Needing no further temptation, Steve bolted after him. The man tugged the rope and they started to ascend quickly.

Steve dodged one man without looking, eyes focused on Clara and the Russian man quickly getting away. He missed the end of the rope by inches and, without breaking pace, sprinted for the escape ladder on the building beneath the helicopter.

By the time Steve managed to make it to the top, though, it was too late. The helicopter was well out of reach and the man was now barely hanging outside of the aircraft. Steve watched as he handed Clara off and began to pull the ladder in.

Angry now, Steve turned his attention of the Hydra agent at his tail, quickly disarming him. He stood above the man, one hand fisted in his vest. “Where are they taking her?” he demanded.

The man just smirked. “Where do you think?” he snapped, then bared his teeth, showing off a tiny pill. He bit into it, the pop audible above the sound of Steve’s heart beating in his chest, and the man started seizing seconds later.

Where was the second man? Steve darted to the edge of the building and looked down, seeing the second agent jumping off the escape ladder and heading for Bucky. Steve glanced around for a quicker way down but, finding none, hoped over the edge of the building and swung down onto the landing of the fire escape, quickly repeating until he made it to the ground.

Steve got to the agent just as he was lifting his unconscious friend over his shoulders much as they’d done to Clara.

“Sorry, Pal, but I’m kind of having an off day,” Steve muttered, grabbing the man by the back of his vest and flinging him away from Bucky. “Now, your friend wasn’t very cooperative—”

The man reached behind him and whipped out a pistol, managing to get a bullet out before Steve kicked it out of his hands. Boy did he wish he’d had his shield. He ignored the burning in his shoulder and continued on to roundhouse kick the guy in the head. Out like a light.

Steve dragged the guy by the back of his vest over to the building Bucky was in front of and ripped a metal storm pipe off the wall. It would have to do until he could get Bucky off the street and to safety. He wrapped the unconscious Hydra agent in the metal and propped him up against a dumpster before he quickly threw Bucky over his good shoulder and headed for help.

XXX

Bucky woke hazily, immediately knowing something wasn’t right. He smelled metal and rust, and his head was throbbing painfully. It was dark, but he could still see the dingy colors of the warehouse around him. He glanced to his left and jerked with his arm, which was stuck in a clamp.

Something was seriously, terribly wrong. He was alone, he noted, using his flesh hand to try and pull his metal one from the vice.

“Hey, Steve!” a voice echoed in the room, but Bucky didn’t immediately see anyone. He squinted as a door screeched and slid open, letting in more light. A few moments later and two men stood in front of him.

Bucky looked up and at Steve’s serious expression, looked away, a well of emotions bubbling in his chest as the memories of what had happened surfaced. Dread, was all he could think of to name the absolutely terrible feeling coursing through his body.

“Steve,” he managed, trying to sit up as straight as he could with his arm twisted in the grip.

“Which Bucky am I talking to?” Steve demanded a little harshly.

“Your mom’s name was Sarah,” he breathed. “You used to wear newspapers in your shoes…” He let out a chuckle at the memory.

Steve and Sam exchanged a glance. “Can’t read that in a museum.”

“Just like that was supposed to be cool?” Sam retorted.

“What did I do?” Bucky asked carefully, looking back down at himself. There was no blood on any of his clothes, he noted. Just a lot of dust and dirt.

“Bucky…” Steve started, clearly uncomfortable.

“Oh, god, I knew this would happen,” he mumbled to himself. “Everything Hydra put inside me is still there. All they had to do was say the goddamn words.”

“Bucky.” Steve’s voice rang out in the small space. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Did I kill anyone? Is anyone hurt?”

Steve hesitated. “You didn’t kill anyone. One Hydra agent took a pill, I couldn’t stop him. The other I handed off to some of the SHIELD agents I’ve gathered once I got you here.”

Bucky paused for a second before he looked up at Steve. “Where’s Clara?”

Steve looked away and then exchanged a short glance with Sam, who was beginning to look uncomfortable.

Bucky tried to sit up straighter. He felt his muscles beginning to tense. “Steve,” Bucky pressed. “Where is Clara? Is she safe? Did she get away from me?”

“Hydra has her,” Steve announced firmly, face determined despite the bad news pouring from his mouth.


	25. Chapter 25

Everything after that felt like days, months, when in honesty it had probably only been a few hours since he’d woken up. Steve knew he would take off the moment he was out of his sight, Bucky knew this, but still, the second they were back at the apartment he made straight for his room. Sam hung back in the living room, his phone in his hand.

“Buck,” Steve sighed in the doorway as Bucky pulled an old tattered bag out from under the bed and pulled a blue cap down over his head.

“Don’t,” he ground out, standing up and pulling a few things out of the drawers of the dresser in the corner.

“Bucky, please, you know better than this.”

Bucky froze and looked at Steve. “Better than what?”

“To run in with your emotions instead of your head,” Steve finished gravely, crossing his arms. “Please, just give us time to—”

“To what?” Bucky demanded. “We’ve already waited too long!” He threw his clothes into the bag angrily. “I should have gone to get that damn book myself in the first place.”

“Bucky.”

“I was stupid, I messed up,” Bucky muttered, pulling out his journals from the nightstand. He paused, his fingers hovering above Connie’s old diaries, but on a second thought, he pulled away from them. He slipped his own journals beneath them, choosing instead to leave them behind.

“Please, just calm down for a second—”

Bucky shut his eyes, hands pausing their frantic movements.

“—we can figure this out, we’ll find her.”

“My whole life has never been about me,” he told Steve gently. “My whole life, every decision has been made for me in the interest of someone else.” He jerked the zipper shut on his bag and hoisted it over his shoulder. “For once, I want to do something for myself. Just this once.”

“And I’m with you on that. But give me an hour to try and contact some people. We need to figure out who took her so we know where they’re taking her.”

“I know who has her and I can guess where they’re taking her. They want to draw me out, draw me to them.”

Steve crossed his arms in the doorway. “To where?”

“Siberia,” he mumbled, looking around the room for anything else he might need. “Where I was kept.”

“Alright,” Steve nodded slowly. “Let me make a few calls—”

“We don’t have time,” Bucky groaned, pushing past Steve.

“How do you plan on getting there?” Steve challenged, following his friend down the hall to the kitchen. “If you give me some time, I can have Tony get the Quinjet prepped for us to use.”

Bucky eyed Steve, slowly taking cans of peaches out of a cabinet and putting them in his bag. “An hour?”

“We’ll be off the ground in less than two,” Steve promised.

“Less than,” Sam muttered, walking into the kitchen. “Stark’s already getting the jet prepped.” He glanced between the two and held up his phone. “I might not have a super soldier serum, but I’m not totally useless, you know.”

Bucky shot him a quick smile. “Thanks.” Sam only nodded once.

-x-

Clara woke up several times, and each time, they were in a different aircraft. She could feel the familiar jostling of a plane in the air, or hear the propellers of a helicopter. Each time, a intense wave of panic would take over her common sense and she’d find herself struggling helplessly against the bindings on her wrists and ankles, trying to scream around the gag.

And each time it ended with either a prick to her arm that sent her into a dark, cold, dreamless sleep, or—depending on the mood of her guard, it seemed—she’d meet the blunt end of a gun to her temple.

No one would find her, she feared. Each different aircraft and she felt another thousand miles from home. It was a different fear than she’d ever felt. When she was trapped in the crushed building of SHIELD, she feared she would die there, but at least she was home. When she was standing in the hospital, watching the news play the clip over and over, she feared what would change, where would she go, what would she do? Who would take someone they feared was a Hydra agent?

But at least she was home, surrounded by her friends and family to help her fall back on. Here, though, she was alone, lost in a huge world in the hands of people who had no use for her alive. She was dead, she knew. As soon as they got what they wanted, she was dead.

She only hoped that when that happened, it wouldn’t be the first mission for the Winter Soldier after his return.

She was woken this time by the guard, shaking her roughly.

“Get up,” he barked in accented English. “Get up.”

She sat up on the hard metal floor where they’d thrown her and noticed the bindings on her ankles had been replaced with a thick chord. The guard grabbed her by the hair and jerked her upwards impatiently, eliciting a pained cry from her. She almost wished they would kill her and put her out of her misery, of the relentless fear.

It was cold, she noted as they shoved her down the ramp roughly. She struggled to keep her feet moving, one foot in front of the other, when all she wanted to do was collapse into a ball at her feet. She shivered in her thin jacket, wishing her wrists were free if only to hold herself together in the bitter cold that slammed into her as she stepped off the jet in front of a huge warehouse.

The snow falling was so thick, she couldn’t see very far in any direction. For all she knew, this building was the only thing around for miles and miles. She tried so hard to focus on what she should be doing, what SHIELD had trained her for, but her fear kept making her panic, and she just wanted to scream.

Her teeth chattered audibly as she scurried behind the two guards as they approached the building. She dropped to her knees as soon as they stopped in front of a pair of huge doors. There was a pause as one guard input a security code in a panel to the side.

“Stand,” the other commanded, jerking her by the arm back to her feet.

“It’s bloody freezing,” she snapped, pulling away from his grip with what little strength she had. “If you need me alive, keep me alive.”

Neither guard answered her, they simply grabbed her by the arms and dragged her into the building and threw her into the back corner of an elevator. Clara stumbled, rolling over her ankle painfully and slammed into the metal wall before sliding to the floor.

“Ow,” she moaned, pulling her knees to her chest. At least it was much warmer inside the building. Which ended as soon as the elevator had finished its three floor decent and opened up, letting in a fresh wave of arctic cold.

The guards dragged her into the room a short distance before a few other men stopped them. It was a small room compared to the size of the building she saw outside. There were seven large tanks lining three sides of the room, computer consoles taking up much of the remaining space. The ceiling was high, the room fairly dark and ominous. Clara didn’t like it at all.

The men conversed in Russian quietly and Clara wished she knew enough to pick out words. She could find them written down thanks to staring at Bucky’s files for so long, but spoken, she didn’t have a clue.

“Freeze her,” one finally said in English, sneering down at her. 

A small, quiet, panicked what escaped Clara’s lips before one of the guards wrapped his arm around her and hauled her across the room to the closest tank on their left. That’s what these were, she realized in a single, horrified moment. These were the cryochambers they kept the soldiers in.

“No!” she shouted, using all the energy she had left in an attempt to flee. She managed to surprise the guard enough to slip out of his grasp, but the chord on her ankles didn’t allow her to get far before the guard reached out and grabbed her by the back of her jacket. He jerked and swung her around, letting her fly easily through the air and slam painfully into the base of the tank hard enough to see stars.

“Please,” she pleaded as the two guards not-so-gently picked her off the floor. “Please, no.”

This wasn’t like the movies. There was no evil villain that spoke English to explain to her why they wanted her and what their motives were. She was insignificant. She could guess they wanted to lure Bucky out. She could guess they were going to put her on ice to keep her manageable. But those were only guesses.

She began screaming and thrashing as they strapped her into the tank tightly. A guard snapped at her, striking her across the face.

“You will die here if not quiet,” one snapped as the other finished pulling at a strap.

“Please,” she begged quickly, “don’t do this—I promise to cooperate. I—”

But it was useless. Both guards backed up quickly as a third stood at a monitor. A siren sounded once and a curved glass shield slid up in front of her. Clara squirmed in a panic, trying to find one last way out of this before the most intense, painful cold took over her in a single instant and then everything was black…


	26. Chapter 26

“We’ve got clearance to land at an airstrip in Russia to refuel before we head to the final destination,” Steve mumbled from the pilot’s seat in the Quinjet.

“This thing can’t make the whole trip?” Bucky grumbled from his seat behind Steve.

“Hey,” Sam interjected next to him. “Just be glad you don’t have to hijack a plane to get there yourself. Or something equally as illegal.”

“I wasn’t planning to hijack a plane,” Bucky muttered under his breath.

“I’ll hijack a plane and come find you,” Connie was muttering good naturedly. 

“You don’t even know how to fly a plane,” Bucky laughed. “How are you going to take one?”

Connie waved him away as if he’d just suggested something ridiculous and smoothed out her skirt over her crossed legs. “Little details. I’m not stressing myself out over it right now.”

“Little details,” he scoffed, flipping through the menu he knew by heart. He chewed the inside of his cheek, not really seeing the words on the paper in front of him. His mind was focused on how to bring up something that had been bothering him for a while. “Hey, Connie?”

“Hmm?” she was leaning into her hand propped up on the table, watching a little boy across the dining room try to climb into the chair by himself. When Bucky didn’t speak, she turned her full attention to him, pressing her lips together at his calmer face, only a gentle smile on his lips. “What’s the matter?”

Bucky dropped the menu onto the table and ran the palm of his hand down his jaw as he hesitated. “Did you mean it? What you said before?” he began hesitantly, a decidedly out-of-character trait that Connie decided didn’t suit him one bit.

“Of course, darling,” she said airily. “I will hijack a plane and come find you.”

Bucky let out a laugh through his nose and shook his head. “No—not that,” he mumbled, taking her hands across the table. “Connie, look, if something happens to me, I don’t want you to get hung up on me, alright?”

Connie gently removed her hands from his and sat up straight, all amusement gone from her face. “I don’t like talking like this.”

“I know,” Bucky sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to. But you said we’d go dancing when I come back—”

“I meant that.”

“—I know,” he continued with a smile, “but I don’t want you feeling like you have to wait for me. I mean, if a better-lookin’ guys comes along and sweeps you off your feet while I’m away, I can’t exactly argue against your happiness.”

Connie frowned. “Bucky—”

“I just want you to be happy. I don’t know how long I’ll be away,” Bucky explained. “I can’t expect you to wait until the war is over. And if I don’t even come back—”

“We are not talking that way,” Connie hissed. 

“Then just promise me you won’t make yourself unhappy on my account.”

“I promise nothing.”

“Connie…” Bucky sighed as the conversation quieted while the waitress took their orders. But he wasn’t about to let it drop as she walked away. “I’m trying to be realistic here.”

Connie’s jaw clenched and she gripped the table in front of her. “Bucky. I’m with you now. I want to be with you. I will write to you whenever you ship off. Let’s just start there.” She pursed her lips, but seemed to calm down slowly. “We’ll deal with whatever happens when it happens, alright?”

But Bucky couldn’t let it drop. “I just don’t want you to feel like you have to wait—”

“Do you not like me?” Connie demanded. “Are you trying to push me away? I am confused.”

“That’s not it at all,” he defended quickly. “I do want to be with you, I just know how things with the war can go.”

“I’m well versed, Bucky.” Connie gave him a sad smile and instantly he felt like the biggest jerk.

“You’re dad,” he breathed. “Right, I’m sorry.”

“Like I said,” Connie began, her tone lighter. “I’m going to hijack a plane and come see you. So it’s a moot point really.”

“Oh yeah, doll?” Bucky grinned as the waitress brought them their food. He watched as she picked up a fry and ran it through a puddle of ketchup she’d poured on the edge of her plate. “So what do you plan on doing with yourself while I’m away?”

She hummed in thought as she chewed. “I was thinking about looking into being a nurse.”

Bucky tilted his head, suspicious, but curious. “Like an army nurse?”

Connie shrugged. “Here or overseas, as long as I was helping people. I want to do my part to help people.”

Bucky smiled fondly as he took a bite of his burger.

“What?” Connie demanded, catching the look on his face.

Bucky shook his head. “Nothin’. Just what Steve says all the time,” he said with a simple shrug.

“What do you think?” she asked slowly.

“I think it’s a great idea.”

“Really?”

Bucky frowned at her surprise. “Yeah. I mean, you’re smart enough you could probably be a doctor if you wanted to. Might take a bit of fighting, but there have a been a coupla dames—”

Connie chuckled. “Nursing is fine for now, I think.”

“Well, I think you’d make a damn fine nurse,” he said with a wink. “Can treat me any day. Sure do have the beautiful eyes for a nurse.”

Connie let out a genuine laugh and swatted at him. “Stop it. Nursing is more than looks.”

“Hmm. Then it’s a good think you’re pretty damn charming, too, huh?”

Connie rolled her eyes and finally bit into her own burger.

-x-

Steve glanced back at Bucky when he finally heard him shift. He’d been staring straight ahead in a daze, unresponsive for several hours. At first, Steve had panicked, but Sam was the one to silence him. “Welcome back,” he murmured over his shoulder.

Bucky grunted and unbuckled his seatbelt to shift, feeling a familiar ache from becoming stagnant for too long. “How long we been flying?”

“Not even half way,” Steve replied. He glanced over his shoulder and studied his friends face for a second. “Not a bad memory then?”

“Connie,” Bucky muttered.

“Who’s she?” Sam asked, curiosity taking over.

“Clara’s grandmother.”

“She told you?” Steve sounded a little surprised.

“A while ago.”

Sam held up a hand. “Wait, wait, you knew Clara’s grandma?” he studied Bucky in the silence, the way he subtly looked away, and let out a short laugh. “No way, you were into her grandma? This is some weird time travel shit right here.”

“Can we stop?” Bucky ground out, looking more towards Steve to get him to agree and shut his bird-friend up. “Let me see your phone.”

Steve’s eyebrows rose, another look over his shoulder to confirm that Bucky had addressed him, and then pulled the device from a pocket near his belt. “What for?”

“I want to see her obituary.”

Sam blinked at him. “That’s morbid as hell.”

Bucky pressed his lips together as he opened the browser, thankful Clara had gotten him up to date on the use of smartphones. “I want to see if she ever became a nurse,” he muttered after a minute of fruitless searching. “I can’t find it though.”

“Do you know when she died?” Sam asked, shifting uncomfortably.

“’95.”

Sam shook his head. “Probably won’t be online, then. You’d need archives of her local paper, maybe.” 

Bucky tried every search he could think of. Her married name, her maiden name, anything. He started to feel and intense frustration building up, and decided to stop before it ruined his focus any further. 

“I can’t remember if she ever wrote me while I was away.”

“She did,” Steve replied surely. “I remember we got back from one of our longer missions and there were a stack of letters waiting for you.”

“I wish I could remember,” Bucky muttered bitterly.

“Have you asked Clara if she has any of the letters?” Sam asked suddenly. Bucky just looked at him blankly. “I mean, if she has her grandmother’s diaries, she probably has other belongings. But man, to be honest, I wouldn’t stress too much about what you don’t remember. It’s not going to change anything. What happened, happened, and you should just be worried about the future right now.”

Bucky took a slow, deep breath. “If all I have are my memories of how things were, then that’s enough for now, but I don’t even have that. Half-knowing is driving me insane.”

Sam left it at that, knowing emotions and stress were running too high for a productive conversation about it. They lapsed into silence for a few more hours, landing once somewhere on the edge of Russia to refuel before finally taking to the air for a final flight to Siberia.


	27. Chapter 27

By the time they landed in front of the warehouse in Siberia, it had been an entire day since Clara had been taken. Steve was worried about running in so quickly while running on fumes, but knew Bucky would be going in with or without backup.

The three men hovered around the back of the aircraft. Bucky was going through the arsenal Tony kept in the back, filling holsters with pistols and knives before his eyes grazed over some of the larger guns. Bucky picked out a long rifle, smirking at the familiarity.

“How many times did I save your ass in the war with something like this?” he muttered to Steve, who was pulling his mask over his face and strapping it in place. He studied the gun for a second as Bucky pulled out ammo and filled a few pouches at his waist.

The corner of Steve’s lips lifted briefly. “Too many to count, pal.”

“We ready?” Sam asked as he tapped on a control pad strapped to his arm near the door.

“As soon as we leave, take to skies. Let us know if anyone escapes. Keep ‘em grounded if they do,” Steve commanded in his no-nonsense tone.

Sam nodded and pushed a lever to release the lock on the door, barreling out as soon as it was open enough. His metallic wings sprung open and lifted him off the ground.

“You remember that time we had to ride back from Rockaway Beach in the back of that freezer truck?” Steve asked, hesitating as they stood waiting for the ramp to finish its decent.

Bucky looked at him with a smirk. “Was that the time you used out train money,” he responded slowly, remembering, “to buy hotdogs?”

“You blew three bucks trying to win that stuffed bear for a redhead,” Steve chuckled.

Bucky struggled, eyes narrowing as he tried to remember better. “What was her name again?”

“Dolores,” Steve filled in quickly. “You called her Dot.”

“She’s gotta be a hundred years old by now,” he frowned, thinking briefly of all these people he knew and this vast expanse of experiences and life they acquired without him.

“So are we, pal,” Steve said, breaking into his train of thought and reminding him that he was still there. Not just in the literal sense, but in the long run. Steve began a quick trot down the ramp. “They can’t have been here more than a few hours. Sam, eyes on anything?”

“Copter on the roof, hasn’t moved in a little while from the snow build up on it. Two SUVs around back.”

“They took her here,” Bucky muttered as they approached the door, which was cracked open.

“It looks abandoned,” Steve grunted as he helped Bucky push the heavy metal door open.

Bucky pulled his rifle from his back and held it ready and cocked, not liking the pure silence. He had tried to prepare the other two men as best he could while they suited up before they landed. The short plan was to get in and get Clara out. The long one included Bucky describing what he remembered of the layout to Steve. He wasn’t sure where they would keep her, but he had a few guesses.

“There were cages down in the lowest level where they would have us fight and train,” Bucky had explained. “My guess is they would keep her there, at least until they know they have me back in their custody.”

“Alright Buck,” Steve said from behind his shield as they took a few steps into the cold warehouse. “Where are we headed?”

Bucky jerked his chin towards the elevator that was clearly still powered, and then led them to a door for the stairs. “Be on your guard,” he murmured needlessly. While the main entry was dark, cracked concrete covered with a thin layer of dust, the lights along the ceiling not working, the air wasn’t as stale as Bucky expected it to be.

Bucky had told them he remembered five floors that existed beneath the main level, the cages being on the lowest one. He pressed his lips together, fighting the urge to just jumped down the center of the stairs to make it to the bottom in half the time. He felt his heart drumming against his ribs beneath the several layers he’d thrown on.

He focused on the sound of their footsteps echoing in the stairwell as they approached the landed of the third floor down. The door opened and an unlucky agent stepped into the stairwell, nearly running face first into Bucky’s rifle. A metal arm shot out and grabbed his face, covering his mouth before he could alert anyone to their presence. Considering how surprised he was, they didn’t know he was there despite having parked the Jet at the door.

“Where is she?” he demanded in Russian. “Scream and die painfully.”

“Bucky—” Steve stepped forward and grabbed his friend’s arm. “We’re not here to kill.”

“Why not?” he hissed back. “They will kill her. The first chance they get.”

The Hydra agent’s expression changed and it almost looked like he was smirking beneath Bucky’s hand, setting him off in a blind rage. Red shot through his vision and the next thing he knew the agent was slumped against the wall and bleeding from his temple.

Steve leaned down and looked for a pulse at the man’s neck, letting out a puff of air when he found one.

“We should keep moving,” Bucky suggested gruffly. “They woke me up here right before they brought me to the states. It shouldn’t be this…abandoned.”

“Maybe they knew this would be the first place we’d come after,” Steve suggested, standing up straight. “If SHIELD had you and you told them where their main base was.”

“He warned them,” Bucky ground out suddenly, eyes roving over the unconscious man to see a radio in his hand. Bucky lifted his rifle back up and turned to continue quickly down the stairs. As soon as they made it to the bottom floor, Bucky kicked open the door and an alarm rang out through the whole facility.

Steve stepped up behind Bucky, who’d stopped in front of two men.

“Who’re these guys?” he muttered, glancing between the genuinely surprised look on Bucky’s face and the two men dressed like Bucky had been the first time he’d seen him on the bridge; black cargo pants, combat boots, and a vest over long sleeves.

“Winter soldiers,” Bucky breathed. “They really woke up other Winter Soldiers for this.”

“There are more of you?” Sam asked through the comm, having heard all of that. “I can’t scan heat signatures of the building. Too much cold and the concrete is too thick for my sensors.” 

“She’s not here,” Bucky muttered to him. The cages partitioned off the room into sections, all of them empty.

“Whoever is orchestrating this knows how your mind works,” Steve muttered. “They knew you’d check here first.”

“Where is she?” Bucky asked the other soldiers in Russian.

“On ice,” the dark-haired one of the left said in heavily accented English, a smirk forming on his face.

Bucky got a shot off towards them, knowing neither of the soldiers would be hit by it. They were too skilled at that. But like the explosion of the bullet, the Soldiers took off towards them, Bucky wasting no time in tossing his rifle aside and meeting them in the center of the room, Steve hot on his heels.

“We’ve gotta take them out if we’re going to find her,” Bucky grunted to Steve as they tag-teamed one of the guys like a pinball. The second grabbed Bucky by the collar and tossed him over his shoulder like it was nothing. He grunted as he bounced off the floor and into the metal mesh of a cage.

“Steve, we got backup,” Sam’s voice crackled over the comm.

“Us or them?” Steve demanded as he defended himself against the two soldiers in front of him and Bucky got to his feet.

“Us.”

With a powerful punch to his shield, Steve slid back several yards on his feet. “We gotta do better than this,” he mumbled to Bucky.

“I told you,” he breathed. “They only get that title if they beat me.”

“But they didn’t,” Steve smirked, eyes flicking to Bucky’s rifle on the floor. “They beat Hydra’s Winter Soldier. They didn’t get the chance to fight Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky frowned as he dodged a punch. “Bucky Barnes was a little smartass kid from Brooklyn.”

“Maybe that’s what we need,” Steve grunted, deflecting a kick.

“Or,” a metallic voice echoed through the large empty room. “You just need another Avenger.”

Steve threw his shield, catching on of the Soldiers off guard as they both turned their attention to the flying man. “Tony? What are you doing here?”

Ironman landed in front of them and shot a beam at the other soldier, sending him spiraling through the air and into a cage wall. Tony rounded on Cap. “Well,” he started sarcastically, “when Sam called asking for use of the Jet, I did some very brief digging and found out our team doctor was kidnapped by Hydra. Didn’t think that was useful info for me, Steve?”

“Sorry,” he breathed, resetting his shield on his arm. “Was a little bit distracted.”

“You upset Pepper,” Tony replied smoothly. “She was crying.”

“I’ll make sure to apologize.” Steve tossed his shield across the room at one Soldier as Tony sent a blast at the other. Steve glanced over his shoulder at his silent friend and saw him taking a position in a corner, rifle back in his hands.

A flap on Tony’s shoulder opened and a small projectile flew out of it, landing at the feet of one Soldier. It was enough that caused the man to hunker down as the blast went off, and Bucky wasted no time getting a shot off.

Three against one was enough to keep the soldiers down. Several minutes of fighting and Bucky had reloaded three times, not a single shot missing.

“What does it take to keep these guys down?” Tony asked. “JARVIS, scan for weak points again.”

“We just gotta keep at it,” Bucky called from the corner. Anytime a soldier went after their sharpshooter, Steve would push them back, protecting Bucky. 

A soldier grabbed on of Tony’s legs and his scans pointed out every bullet wound, all non-lethal. “You’re holding back, Barnes!” Tony accused.

“What?” Steve glanced back at Bucky, whose eyes were level with the top of the rifle, focused.

“They can be saved,” he argued tightly. “They were like me—”

“We don’t have the time for rehab,” Tony shouted back, blasting the soldier off him. Their movements were drastically slower than when he arrived, but there was no sign of the fight stopping. “Clara’s on the third floor.”

“I know,” Bucky snapped.

“Buck, do what you gotta do,” Steve ground out, a soldier catching his throat. Steve lifted a leg and caught the Soldier in the chest, but it wasn’t enough to shake him off. “This is a war. Tony’s right. We’ve gotta get to Clara.”

Bucky bit down on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. After another few seconds of hesitation, he finally squeezed the trigger, the Soldier holding Steve dropping like lead. A flash of similarity pulsed through Bucky’s mind, and he remembered being on a snowy hill in the woods outside a Hydra camp as Steve fought off agents. And up sixteen feet in a tree next to a bunker as other Commandos defended themselves trying to get inside. And from the top of a building in London as a politician left his home, kissing his wife goodbye. And from the backseat of an unmarked black sedan outside a pub where one of his targets frequented.

His time as the Winter Soldier and as the American Soldier began to mesh in that instant. He’d been a killer long before Hydra had gotten to him.

But he couldn’t get past the fact that these Soldiers were just like him. Humans, experimented on. But the question that nagged him now was, were they made like this against their will, or were they just like him…a prisoner…

Bucky shifted slightly and pulled the trigger again, the other Soldier, being held down by Steve the time, stopped moving, too.


	28. Chapter 28

“Are you alright?”

Bucky looked up, lowering his rifle. “Huh?”

“Buck, are you alright?” Steve repeated, holding out his hand.

“I killed them,” he grunted, taking his friend’s hand and getting to his feet.

“Don’t dwell on it, Buck-cicle,” Tony commented as he joined them. “We need to find Dr. Maitland.”

“They froze her,” Bucky remembered, pulling a few bullets out of a pouch and refilling his rifle. 

“We’re still not alone in here, I took out about a dozen agents on my way in,” Tony told them.

“Sam?” Steve asked, finger at the comm in his ear. “Anything?”

“I caught about five heat signatures on the main floor. They might be running. I’m circling back to the SUVs.”

“Keep ‘em grounded.” Steve motioned for the door and took off for the stairs again, Bucky and Tony right behind him. They only made it up to the landing of the floor above them before they were stopped by a group of Hydra agents.

One of them called out to Bucky in Russian, and Steve glanced in time to see his friend flinch at the words.

“Sorry,” Tony muttered after a blast sent the agent tumbling down the stairwell. “Were you guys having a conversation?”

Three other agents wasted no more time in launching themselves at the men. While fighting in such tight quarters was easier for Bucky and Steve, who simply knocked the men unconscious and tossed them over the rails, Tony was struggling a bit and blasted his way through the door onto the floor.

He froze as he stepped into the room, which was anything but empty. Huge tanks lined the far wall, the glass on the front facings shattered and defrosted enough on the right two to see figured slumped over inside them. The other two were clearly empty. In the center of the room was a chair surrounded by computers, an armature connected to the back clarifying exactly what it had been used for.

A dozen or so Hydra agents had frozen and turned to him on his entrance, but had yet to fire on him.

“What? No warm welcome for me?” he asked as one agent in a white coat stood from the computer he was at to Tony’s right.

The smirk on the man’s face made Tony want to make him melt.

“Anthony Stark,” the man greeted. “Was not expecting you. Not today, at least.”

“Who’re you?” Steve demanded, stepping up next to Ironman, Bucky close behind.

The man held up a finger. “I have gifts,” he said, turning slowly to tap on the computer he’d been working at. A screen to their left flickered to life and began playing security footage, a road at night.

“I know that road,” Tony said, stepping closer. He looked back at Steve and Bucky, but Steve was confused and Bucky had his jaw clenched as they all watched it happen on the screen.

“Please, Sergeant Barnes, help my wife!” the pleas continued and Bucky couldn’t breathe.

When the video ended, Steve snapped out of his daze and tossed his shield across the room. It didn’t exactly slice through the monitor like he’d hoped, but it was enough to break it.

“Please, Captain. The soviets designed this chamber to withstand a few hundred rockets,” he said with a smirk as the shield returned to Steve’s hands.

“I’ll bet I can beat that,” Tony snarled.

“Ah-ah! More gifts!” The man held up a very familiar, worn red book with a black star stamped on the front.

“That’s it,” Bucky breathed. “That’s the book.”

The man opened it and began to read aloud in Russian. “Longing…”

“Don’t let him finish!” Bucky warned, jerking up his rifle and managing to pick off two agents that jumped in front of the man quickly before the others even began to move.

“Rusted…”

Steve immediately made his way towards the man, tossing agents over his shoulder easily, but was distracted when one managed to land a well placed hit to his cheek, another jumping at the chance to knock him back a few paces.

“He’s getting away!” Bucky shouted firing off a few shots towards where the man was being escorted out by two agents.

“Sam!” Steve shouted, trying to shake off the agents attacking him so he could pursue the man. “Dark haired man in a white coat. He has the book.”

“Little busy!” Sam snapped back.

“He has the book!” Bucky snarled, trying to keep his friend alive. “Shake them off and get him.”

He didn’t get a response, so he made quick work of the three guys left on Steve, who immediately took off out the door the man had gone through. Ironman was holding his own against the last two. Bucky tried not to think about the two dozen agents whose bodies littered the cold concrete.

Bucky quickly made his way past them and up the stairs, quickly reloading his rifle as he went. All thoughts of Clara vanished at the sight of that book. That book. That book. The words bounced through his head, consuming all parts of him.

Bucky burst through the door at the top of the stairs and out onto the snowy rooftop where the chopper’s blades were already spinning, lifting it off the roof in a swirl of powdery snow and bitter wind. Steve was off to the side, preoccupied with three more agents.

“No, no, no!” He screamed, taking aim at the propellers. A loud snap, audible over the noise of the chopper and wind made his whole body freeze as he looked down to see the bullet jammed in the chamber. He didn’t have time for this.

“Longing…” The voice from the day at the café echoed out around him, but Bucky tried to ignore the words, their meaning, as he rocketed towards the quickly ascending chopper.

“Sam!” he screamed, the red bird nowhere in sight. 

“Rusted…” They were teasing him…

Bucky let out a feral scream as he jumped up with all his strength, reaching for the copter. His fingers brushed metal, but he couldn’t get a grip. There was a metallic ringing as his left hand grazed the bar before he fell back to the roof, landing heavily on his feet before falling forward into a roll and skidding to a stop on his knee.

“No!” he screamed, putting his fist through the roof in a burst of rage. He pulled a pistol out of the holster at his waist and emptied the clip. There was satisfaction in the helicopter’s windshield shattering, but it kept flying. He let out another yell and rounded on the remaining two agents still on Steve, easily breaking the neck of one and tossing the other off the roof with Steve’s help.

“Buck, calm down,” Steve panted as he glanced over the edge of the roof, noting the unmoving form of the agent. “We’ll get it.”

“This. Is. Bad,” Bucky ground out, jerking a hand through his hair. “They have the book, they have me. Whenever they want me.”

“You have me, Bucky,” Steve snapped back. “They didn’t get you last time, they won’t next time.”

“They got her!” Bucky yelled, voice cracking and he gestured widely to the door back into the building.

Steve gripped his shoulder and waited until he had Bucky’s attention. “Let’s get Clara, we’ll take out this base, we’ll go home and we’ll regroup. Commando days, alright?”

Bucky let out a harsh breath but nodded. “Where’s your bird?”

“Busy with the guys pouring out of the building, thanks for asking,” the man finally responded over the comms. “A lot more people in here than we thought.”

“We’re gonna go get Clara and torch it,” Steve said, heading back into the building. But he got down a level and saw Ironman standing in the middle of a hallway just inside the door to the stairwell.

“Everything good?” Steve asked.

“Floor is clear,” Tony confirmed, faceplate flipping up. “You guys?”

Steve glanced at Bucky next to him and nodded.

“You,” Tony said menacingly, pointing at Bucky. “we need to have words, Pal.” Tony stomped up to Bucky, getting in his face, but the Soldier stood still as stone, unmoving.

“This isn’t the time, Tony,” Steve tried.

“He was yelling for you to help him!” Tony yelled. Steve moved to intervene, but Bucky simply stood there, seemingly unaffected. He didn’t need this kid telling him what a monster he was. He’d spent enough time with Howard, he got to know the man quite well in the 40s. Bucky knew very well what kind of person he was, and Tony didn’t even know a fraction of the shit he’d done.

“Tony, stop this,” Steve demanded. “We’ve been down this road—”

“That was before I had proof, Cap,” Tony responded, voice dangerously low, but wavering. “That was before I saw it.”

Tony lifted a hand and fired a blast directly at Bucky’s chest, sending him flying back into the stairwell, before snapping his helmet down and flying into the stairwell after him. He wrapped an arm around Bucky’s neck as he was trying to get to his feet. “Do you even remember them?”

“I remember all of them,” he choked out, struggling against Tony’s grip.

Steve caught up and grabbed Tony, ripping him off Bucky with a feral yell. “Enough!” he roared. He rounded on Tony. “We’ve been through this, and somehow you managed to get past it the first time. I’m not asking you to forgive him, but put it aside so we can focus on saving Clara.”

“I remember them the most now,” Bucky said, voice rough.

“Speak up,” Tony snapped.

Bucky met Tony’s glare as the helmet opened back up. “I remember them the most,” he repeated, louder. “I remember the whole thing, getting back to Hydra, and then remembering Howard. They tried to control me, but I managed to kill thirteen agents before they finally got me strapped me into the chair again.”

“Bucky—” Steve tried to interrupt.

“They had to shock me for over an hour before I stopped remembering who Howard Stark was and what I’d done to the man who had been my friend.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Bucky ground out, picking his rifle off the ground. “But you asked me if I even remembered them. And I did. I remembered them then, and I remember them now. And that will live with me for the rest of my life. You ever been forced to kill a friend, Tony?”

“He was under Hydra’s control,” Steve pressed, staring Tony down, who seemed to be having an internal war with himself.

Tony’s face scrunched up and he pinched his eyes shut. “Yeah—yeah I get it.”

“We’ve gotta get to Clara and get her out,” Steve said, trying to refocus them. “Sam needs help on the ground.” Steve looked to Bucky, contemplating where they should split.

“I got it,” Tony said.

“Tony—”

“Go!” he called back, helmet snapping down as he took off up the center of the stairwell.


	29. Chapter 29

Steve and Bucky wasted no more time, tearing their way through escaping Hydra agents to get to the third level. Bucky stumbled as he jerked the door to the floor off it’s hinges, narrowly missing his partner as he tossed it over the stairs. 

Bucky led the way, remembering as he went where the chamber was. This floor was simpler, he remembered. A long hall, three doors. The two on the right were insignificant, leading to smaller interrogation-like rooms. A door on the left was already open, and Bucky more or less kicked it open the rest of the way, his rifle up.

His sight narrowed in on the occupied chamber to his left, one of several in the room. Steve tossed his shield across the room, breaking Bucky’s vision and reminding him that there were still hostiles in the building.

Without a second thought, he aimed at the man closest to the pod and fired, low and accurate. The man screamed out as his kneecap exploded and he fell to the ground in a lump. He would not kill them. They didn’t deserve a quick death.

The room was cleared quickly, only three agents having remained in the room. Cap had knocked one unconscious while Bucky had made quick work of the other two with his rifle.

Bucky grinned down menacingly at the man near the tank. “I don’t remember you,” he hissed in Russian.

“And you won’t when Hydra gets you back under their control.” He bit down hard on something in his mouth before Bucky could react, and slumped to the ground. Ignoring the little dramatic show, Bucky turned back to see Steve slowly approaching the pod, wiping at the condensation on the glass in an effort to see in.

“We need to get her out,” he muttered. Steve wound his shield back, ready to pound at the glass. As Bucky realized what he was doing, he dove forward and knocked the shield away from him, grabbing his arm with a yell of don’t.

“What? Why?” Steve demanded.

“It’s a process,” Bucky said quickly, looking around for the control panel for the tank she was in. “If you don’t do it right, you could kill her.”

“Alright.” Steve shifted, following the other man to a podium-like computer. “What do we need to do?”

Bucky chewed the inside of his cheek and tapped away at the screen, pulling up different windows and settings. “I saw them do this once,” he mumbled, “when they woke up another soldier and I was in the room.”

“How long will it take?”

“About twenty minutes. I have to lower her temperature to a safe level as quickly as possible, and then slowly bring her body temperature down to a normal level or she could sustain tissue damage.”

Steve nodded once and slid his shield onto his back. “Do it. If trouble finds us, I’ll hold them off as long as possible.” Steve put a finger to his ear. “You guys alright out there?”

“We’re managing,” Sam grunted. “Two SUVs managed to leave, Ironman is chasing them down so I doubt they’ll get far. The rest of them are trapped unless they got some kinda underground parking deck.”

“Let us know if you need backup.”

Bucky paused when the console beeped loudly in time with Clara’s tank. Steam released from a tube and the windows quickly became clearer. Bucky’s breath hitched now that he could see her, the frost clinging to her dark hair and pale skin, the blue tint of her lips. But more so, he saw the terrified look frozen on her face, her eyes still wide in fear.

“That supposed to happen?” Steve asked slowly. Bucky just stared down at the monitor, trying as hard as he could to slip back into that one time, wishing he was more confident in what he was doing.

But there were no warnings popping up on the screen, nothing to denote that he was necessarily doing anything wrong. He finally found the screen displaying her vitals and let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“Bucky—”

“It’s fine,” he breathed, pressing another button. “Ten minutes and we can get her out. She’s going to be a little out of it, so we’ll have to carry her.” He watched her heartbeat slowly, but steadily increase towards a more normal beat.

Steve clapped him on the back. “She’s going to be okay, Buck.”

A corner of Bucky’s mouth lifted for a split second and he nodded, eyes never leaving the screen in front of him.

Those last ten minutes felt like an eternity as Bucky watch the bpm rise achingly slow. He glanced up at her occasionally, watching her hair fall limp from the melting moisture, color slowly returning to her cheeks. When her heart rate was steady, her blood pressure and oxygen levels out of a harmful range, Bucky tapped a button and quickly made his way to the tank, Steve right behind him.

The glass enclosure slid down slowly and Bucky wasted no time reaching in and pulling Clara from the harnesses that held her upright. She felt worryingly limp in his arms, still so cold to the touch, but there were small twitches of movement that gave him hope.

He carefully carried her away from the tank and sat her down on the floor, her back against the podium, and cupped her cheeks. “Clara?”

She moaned, her eyes fluttering but unfocused.

“You sure she’s okay?”

“Yeah, I told you she’d be out of it,” he mumbled, rubbing her cheek with his warmer flesh hand. “She doesn’t have the serum like I do, so I don’t know how long it’ll take her to—”

“Bucky?”

Bucky smiled as Clara’s eyes finally focused on him. Her face crumpled, a sob escaping her, and she reached up weakly towards him. Her arms wound around the back of his neck to pull him to her. He met her half way and pulled her to his chest, feeling the damp coldness of her seeping through his clothes. He stood, holding her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was terrifying,” she breathed shakily, but he shushed her, kissing her hair above her ear.

“I know. It’s okay now, you’re okay.” He pulled away and quickly shucked off his top sweater, scrunching up the sleeves like he used to do for Rebecca when she was little to help Clara put it on. She shook as he helped guide her arms through the too-big sleeves and pulled it down over her head. Her teeth clattered together quietly. “Can you stand?”

She didn’t reply quickly enough for him and he stood in front of her, quickly leaning down and scooping her up into his arms. Clara didn’t protest, she simply wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in the warmth of his neck.

“It was so awful,” she whispered.

“Shh.” He adjusted her quickly, getting a better grip, and then turned to Steve. “We’re ready to go. Sam have the jet ready?”

Steve pressed his lips together, hand at his ear for a second, before it dropped to his side and he nodded once. “He’s got it ready to go. Come on.”

Bucky followed behind Steve as they made their way to the elevator this time. He’d feel better in an enclosed space where he could better protect her. Steve punched the button for the ground floor before turning to Clara, reaching over and brushing her damp bangs off her face. Her brown eyes were wide and glassy, barely focusing. 

“We’ll take her back to DC,” Steve murmured. “She can get something to eat on the jet, warm up.”

Bucky didn’t respond, he just kept his eyes on the reflection of them in the metallic walls of the elevator. He was dressed like the Winter Soldier, but when he looked at his face, all he saw was that scared kid from Brooklyn with a draft notice in his hands. He took a little comfort in that, despite the new faces he had to add to the already lengthy list of people he’d murdered.

It was for her, though, he tried to convince himself, his gaze shifting to the reflection of his arms holding up a small, dark haired woman. It’d been a warmer day in DC. She only had on a thin pair of jeans and those white canvas shoes she liked so much—one of which was missing, leaving her foot bare.

The elevator dinged and opened to the floor facing the door they’d come in, the silhouette of the Quinjet visible in the fog of the snowstorm outside.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky murmured down to Clara. “It’s gonna get cold for a little bit, but then you’ll be warm, I promise.”

Clara only clutched Bucky tighter as he jogged through the cold towards the ramp. “No one escaped,” Tony declared as he landed at the bottom of the ramp, Sam quick to land behind him.

“Tony took care of the SUVs, no one else should be able to leave.”

Bucky grunted with a nod as he gently placed Clara in the closest seat, disentangling himself from her arms as he murmured to her. Steve passed by to take the seat at the front of the ship, Sam removing some of his gear near the back where the ship was closing. 

“Jarvis, scan Dr. Maitland for me please,” Tony commanded, stepping up next to Bucky. When he realized what Tony was doing, he took a step away to give Tony room. “Concussion, sprained ankle, couple lacerations that could use cleaning, and…” He stepped closer to Clara. “Lean forward.”

Clara blinked up at Tony before her gaze flicked to Bucky, who crouched beside her and carefully took her shoulders in his hands, moving her back away from the chair. Tony reached down and lifted up the bottom of her shirt a bit.

“Yeah, that probably…hurts,” Tony mumbled, inspecting the black bruise on the small of her back before letting her shirt drop.

“Are there blankets on here?” Bucky asked quietly, helping Clara slowly lean back against the chair again. She was still shaking, her hands the worst of it. He pulled her sleeves down over her hands and curled her fingers around them, locking her hands inside.

Tony returned quickly as the engines around them roared to life and handed Bucky a thin blanket. “It’s all we have for now. Once we get in the air we can pump on the heat.”

Bucky took it, sending a half smile up at Tony, thanking him, but not wanting to meet the man’s eyes just yet. He quickly wrapped Clara in the blanket, and she helped him wrap herself, eager for the comfort. She let him buckle her in before he buckled himself into the seat next to her on the other side of the ship.

“Alright, let’s go home,” Steve announced, flipping a few things on and letting the ship lift off the ground with a shutter. 

Bucky unbuckled himself quickly and leaned over Steve’s shoulder as the Jet began to ascend. “What kind of weapons are on this?” he grunted, flipping through a few things and dodging Steve’s attempts to brush him off. A part of the ship popped up on the screen, highlighted in red, and both men froze. Bucky looked down at Steve. “What the hell does Stark need this kind of power for?”

Steve’s hands fell into his lap and he glanced back at Tony, who was standing behind Clara’s chair, a hand braced against the ceiling. “Well, there was this alien invasion thing…” he shrugged. “Rather have and not need then need it and…” He gestured vaguely.

Bucky rolled his eyes and tapped in a few coordinates, locking on the warehouse.

“If that thing blows up and takes us out with it, I’m going to kill you both,” Sam grumbled, tightening his seatbelts. “I’m just saying—super soldier does not mean immortal.”

“Oh, please, my tech is a little more advanced,” Tony scoffed. “That missile can be fired from anywhere within a ten mile radius, just give it coordinates—like Manchurian Candidate just did—and we’ll be a safe distance before this Hydra facility collapses.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes at Tony, making a mental note to look that up later if he remembered.

“I really don’t remember Howard being such an asshole,” Bucky muttered under his breath, causing Steve to laugh.

“Go strap in. We’ve got a ways before home.”


	30. Chapter 30

“Get her into the shower and I’ll find some sweatpants that might fit her,” Steve murmured as he held the door open for Bucky to guide Clara inside. She made no protest as he led her down the hall and into the bathroom he shared with Steve. It wasn’t tiny, but he was aware of how tiny it felt with another person in there, too.

Wordlessly, he leaned into the tub and twisted the handle, letting the water run as hot as he felt would be comfortable to her. She could always make it hotter, but he didn’t want it to hurt her. Clara stood behind him, watching with arms wrapped around herself. He pulled a clean towel from a cabinet and put it on the counter for her.

“You’re gonna be alright,” he whispered, brushing her bangs out of her eyes, which were still wide despite the calm look on her face. He moved to leave, but she grabbed a fistful of his sleeve.

“Please…don’t…” Her voice was hoarse and scratchy, and he realized this was the first time she’d spoken since the warehouse.

“No one’s going to hurt you, I promise. There’s only one way into this room and I’m going to be guarding the door the whole time.” But she didn’t look convinced.

“Please don’t leave,” she said again, her grip tightening.

Bucky shook his head and turned to lock the door behind him. “I won’t. Promise.” He motioned towards the steaming shower before being the gentleman and turning to face the corner of the bathroom. There was a pause before he heard her slowly taking off her clothes and climbed into the tub, clearly sitting on the floor, no doubt in a ball. He wished he could help her so much more than this…

Clara’s mind was blank, and she knew she needed to regain control, to put her training and advice she’d given others to use. It was so much easier to apply that knowledge when it was neatly wrapped in advice given to someone else. Easier said that done, as the saying went. She needed a distraction, or a sense of normalcy. Something familiar to shake the constant barrage of memories of cold and pain.

“Have you remembered anything new lately?”

Bucky turned and put his back against the door, sliding to the floor. “Some,” he responded vaguely. “The good, mostly. Before the war.”

“Tell me about it.” Her voice was somewhere between a demand and a plea, and Bucky’s heart ached a little.

“She said she was gonna hijack a plane to come visit me when I shipped out.”

Clara chuckled and pulled her knees to her chest, letting the hot water from the showerhead hit her across her back. “That sounds like her.”

“She said she was gonna become a nurse, but I don’t remember if she ever did or not,” Bucky mused. “Steve said we wrote while I was overseas, but I don’t remember any of that.”

Clara frowned at her toes. “You didn’t read all the diaries? Bucky, she became a doctor because of you.” Another laugh escaped her lips. “I became a doctor because of her, so I guess indirectly, I became a doctor because of you. Maybe this was fate.”

Bucky’s mind spun at that. She had gone on to be a doctor? “I didn’t read the third one,” he realized aloud. 

“Why not?” Clara asked. She had picked out the ones where she knew her grandmother mentioned him in depth. Bucky was mentioned in nearly all of them, in passing here and there. Mostly on days where she’d had a rough day and had wondered what life would have been like, how things could have been different. The biggest what if in her life.

“Your grandfather,” Bucky replied flatly. “I’m not ready for that.”

“I asked her once if she ever told grandfather about you,” she murmured, remembering that day so clearly. It was one of the last good days Connie had had before she passed nearly a week later. “She told me she was leaving me some things in her will. When I asked what, she showed me her diary, the last one. She said she was giving me her memories, the good and bad.

“So I asked if she meant the war, because she had been a nurse in Italy for a little while before the war ended.” Clara took a breath and tilted her head back to let the warmth of the water spread over her face for a moment. She wiped her face before she continued, Bucky waiting silently. “She said that her life had been full of ups and downs. She said that she didn’t think grandfather was the one she was meant to be with.”

Bucky frowned at that. “How could she say that about her own husband?”

“They had their moments,” Clara shrugged. “They loved each other, don’t get me wrong. Because I said the same thing, shocked she would say something like that about grandfather. She took your photo out of her diary and told me about this boy she met when she was twenty-something, but that he died in the war. She said two years of loving you was not enough, and she never really got over you. I didn’t believe her until I read her diaries.”

“I was the reason she became a doctor…”

“I have an uncle named James,” Clara mentioned smoothly. “Uncle Jim. I asked grandmother if she’d ever mentioned you to grandfather, and she said of course she did.” Bucky could hear the smile in her voice. “She said it would have been a disservice to both of you not to.”

Bucky took a shaky breath, unsure of what to say to that. They were only together less than a year before he shipped out and never saw her again, though they wrote for over a year after that. And that short amount of time had impacted her life so much?

“Sometimes, when we get too emotionally attached to someone or something, when we lose it so suddenly while we’re on a high, it’s a very painful event. Some people take ages to move on, some never do,” Clara explained slowly. “My belief as a professional is that grandmother didn’t want to let it go, because even if it made her sad to think about, she still cherished that small amount of time she had with you.”

“Do you have her letters?” he asked suddenly. “The ones I wrote her?”

Clara was silent for a moment. “I can check. If she kept them either I have them or my father has them with the rest of her belongings.”

“Don’t put yourself out on my account, Clara,” Bucky grumbled. “You’re doing enough for me, Forget the letters. I’ll remember them on my own.”

“Maybe,” came her reply in a small voice after a few beats. “I want to get out now.”

Bucky stood as she shut off the shower and he handed her towel to her over the curtain. He waited until she’d wrapped herself in it and pushed aside the shower curtain before he unlocked the door. “I’m gonna go find you some clothes, alright?” She nodded. “You want tea?”

“If it’s not too much trouble…”

Bucky gave her a short nod and a small smile before he left the bathroom, closing the door behind himself. He found Steve sitting at the kitchen island watching the news. The kettle on the stove steamed, the top left open to keep it quiet.

“I boiled some water for her, I left some spare clothes on your bed,” Steve said over his shoulder. “Might be a bit baggy, but they should be warm.”

Bucky nodded and moved to fix a cup of tea, glancing at the TV. “They mention anything about the chaos I caused?”

Steve shook his head. “Nah, if they covered it we missed the brunt of it while we were preoccupied. Main story is still those files and some kind of celebrity scandal ring.”

Bucky’s ears perked up at that. “What are they talking about with the files?” he asked, trying not to sound as eager and nervous as he felt.

“A friend of mine did some damage control before you…before we talked in New York, but they're trying to find people to hold accountable. They want trials for some of the crimes detailed in the reports,” Steve explained, watching Bucky pour hot water into a mug he got from the cabinet.

Bucky’s hand froze, gripping a spoon and focusing hard not to bend it in his metal fingers. “My crimes?”

“You’re on the list of possibilities, yes,” Steve admitted. “But you’re in my protection, Buck. They won’t get to you unless you want them to.”

“That’s a nice sentiment, Steve, but even you’re not above the law.”

“Maybe not, but you don’t deserve to rot in some high security prison somewhere,” Steve argued back.

Bucky chewed the inside of his cheek as he collected the mug, spoon, and sugar to take back to his room, not wanting to argue this. He padded back down the hall, trying to make as much noise as he could as he made it to the room at the end of the hall. The light was on, the door wide pen, and Clara stood just inside wrapped in a towel, shivering again.

Bucky set the tea down on the nightstand and gestured to the clothing. “Put those on and you can have tea. I’ll go find more blankets.”

Clara nodded quickly and Bucky returned to the front of the apartment. He scanned the living room quickly, spying two folded blankets draped over the back of the couch, and took them back to his room wordlessly.

Clara was wearing a pair of sweatpants that bunched up at her ankles and a sweater. She was sitting on the edge of the bed with one of Connie’s diaries opened in on hand, the other hand pressing the warm mug into her cheek.

“They say a person dies twice,” she read aloud. “The first time, when you stop breathing. The second a little later on when someone says your name for the last time. While my time with Bucky was short, I still feel like he’d be proud of where I am today, despite having moved on and opened my heart to another. Today I earned my doctorate. I felt he was with me during the ceremony. He felt alive and well, and I know he’s proud.”

Clara shut the book carefully and set it aside.

“We talked about it,” he said softly. “I remember asking what she wanted to do with her life, what she would be doing while I was away. She said she was considering training to become a nurse.” He moved to sit next to her, draping one of the blankets over her shoulder. “I told her she was smart enough to become a doctor. She laughed at me.”

“Product of the times,” Clara muttered. “I never understood grandmother’s attachment to someone she only knew for two years, nearly half a century ago.” She looked up at Bucky, eyes wide, a tremble in her lip, her voice barely a whisper. “I understand now.”

Something took over him then. It was mostly instinctual, something that had been dormant for years. He leaned over and wrapped his arms around Clara, careful not to spill the tea in her hands. After a few moments, he gently took the mug from her hands and laid her down, hoping she’d drift off to sleep that she very much needed. She hadn’t so much as shut her eyes the whole ride back.

They fell into a silence in the room. Bucky watched the shadows drift across the wall as the sun finally set. He only moved to turn on the lamp on the nightstand to keep the room from being thrown into complete darkness.

“It was so awful.” Her voice was so quiet next to him; he wasn’t sure at first that she’d spoken. He chanced a glance down to where she was curled into his side to see her looking up at him, her eyes red and wide. “Is that what it was like for you? Terrifying and lonely and cold and—”

Bucky shifted, carefully rolling onto his side to face her, scooting down so they were eye level. “Every time,” he breathed, taking one of her hands in his flesh one and running his fingers across her knuckles, which were still dry and cracking. She hadn’t made it out physically unscathed.

“I’m sorry.”

Bucky let out a humorless laugh. “Why are you sorry? If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have been thrown in there to begin with. I’m sorry you ended up in their crosshairs.”

Clara’s head tilted forward slowly until it came to rest on his chest. She cherished the warmth of him, so different from the cold of the last few days. “I…was so scared.” Bucky’s arm came around her and pulled her closer.

“I’m sorry, Clara, I’m sorry,” he muttered into her hair. “I’m not a psychologist like you, I don’t know what to say to make it all better or easier. All I can tell you is that I know what you’re feeling. Really well.” He dropped her hand in favor of brushing her cheek. “I know the cold, the loneliness, the pure hopelessness. The fear.”

Bucky could feel her shivering, despite the thick blanket she was rolled up in, and he knew it was because she was remembering the torturous cold. She pulled back a little and looked up at him and he couldn’t help but study her face.

Her dark, warm eyes that matched the dark chocolate color of her hair. He bangs lay straight across her forehead, slightly damp still from her shower.

“If I can get better,” he told her, voice low, “you will, too. You’re strong. Strongest girl I ever met.”

Clara ducked her head again and they stayed like that for a while. When Bucky thought she’d fallen asleep, he moved to detangle himself from her. She’d been wrapped up in two other blankets beneath his comforter, but she’d managed to get a hole of him through the layers.

“Where are you going?” Clara asked as he rolled over to leave the bed.

“I was gonna go take the couch, give you the bed,” he murmured, studying her confused expression. “Do you…”

“It’s not the forties anymore,” she grumbled, burying her face in the blankets to hide a yawn. “I’m a grown woman and can share my bed with whomever I want.”

He let out a chuckle at how very Clara that sounded, pleased to see her slowly coming back around. “Technically it’s my bed.”

“Please just stay here,” she asked quietly. “I just don’t want to be alone…just for tonight? I-I’ll be better soon, I’ll be okay. I’ll have to take that step eventually, but just for now—”

Bucky nodded and moved to get back beneath the blankets. “Alright,” he said. “It’s okay. I’ll be here.”

Bucky helped Clara re-wrap herself in the blankets, pulling the comforter on top of her, up her shoulders.

“How are you not too hot yet?” he asked casually.

Clara looked up at him with a smile in her eyes. “You never just thought about it and got cold?” she asked quietly. Bucky shook his head. “Interesting.”

“Out of all the things that happened to me, that I did, the cold was—is the least of it,” he explained. “But I can see how for you, it’s the worst thing in the world.”

Clara swallowed hard and Bucky scrambled to think of something to change the subject, but Clara beat him to it.

“This the first time you’ve ever had a girl in your bed?” Clara asked with a smirk.

Bucky cocked his head. “What? That wasn’t in your files?” he asked in mock surprise, trying to lighten her mood.

“Oh,” Clara scoffed. “I saw that exhibit, too, you know. You were somewhat of a ladies-man, if you can call it that.”

Bucky laughed, a few female faces from the forties coming to the forefront of his mind. Aside from Connie, he remembered a few other girls. Dot, Ruth, several nurses Steve unintentionally helped him meet…

“What would you call it?” he asked her.

“These days, we call that being a player. A man slut.”

“That’s a dumb name for it,” he muttered, mulling over it. “Slang these days…”

“You sound like an old man,” she giggled. “My grandfather used to say things like that.”

“I highly doubt it has to do with my age,” he grumbled. “I can’t possibly be the only one who thinks that sounds dumb.”

“Then what do you prefer?”

“Charming,” he grinned without missing a beat. Clara let out a laugh.

“I’ll give you that one,” she laughed. “You are indeed charming.”

“Thanks, Darlin’,” he grinned, taking her by surprise at the nickname.

And a sudden wave crashed over her, pulling her back under. She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in the blankets again. This wasn’t right. Not even a little. This was wrong. This man was funny and charming and sweet and kind and Hydra ruined it all. She was reminded of the cold and dark. That was what had taken all of that from him.

Bucky noticed the change and leaned over, flicking the light off on the bedside table. “Try to get some sleep,” he murmured, shifting to slide further down on the bed. He pulled the comforter up over her. “It’s healing, remember?”

“For memory,” she said with a half a laugh, but still shut her eyes, obeying.


	31. Chapter 31

Clara woke with a gasp, fighting in the tangle of her blankets for half a second before remembering where she was at the sight of Bucky sleeping soundlessly next to her. His metal hand was on the bed next to her face, fingers slightly curled.

She was safe. He was here. She wasn’t in that room. She wasn’t in that chamber. Bucky was sleeping soundly next to her, and she was warm. Achy, but not in pain.

She watched his face, still smooth and calm, as she ran her fingers over the cool metal of his palm. It was a coldness she didn’t fear. She found it more comforting, and she held onto that for a second.

God, what was wrong with her? This is textbook, she thought. She should be able to bounce right back from this. Why couldn’t she remember a damn thing she’d tell any SHIELD agent in her position right now?

Clara slipped out of her blanket cocoon, grabbed her phone off the nightstand and headed for the door, watching Bucky carefully as she left to make sure she didn’t wake him. She wasn’t sure how much sleep he got in a night, but she didn’t want to be the reason he got none.

Never in her life had Clara wished she had a close friend she could talk to. After SHIELD fell, she’d lost contact with some of the other medical professionals she’d been close to. She didn’t even know if they had secretly been Hydra or not.

There were a few girls from college she could call, but not at midnight. She didn’t feel that close with them. Clara scrolled through her contacts, finger pausing over one name. She knew Pepper would sometimes work late. Worst that could happen would be getting ignored, right? Pepper had to have helped Tony in some of the weirdness Ironman brought about…right?

She answered on the second ring with a sharp exhale of her name. “I’m so glad you called,” Pepper breathed happily into the phone. “I was worried.”

Clara smiled down at her feet and leaned into the armrest of the couch. “Did I catch you at a bad time?” she asked. “I figured you’d be up late, but—”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I have time to talk. How are you doing? Tony told me what happened…”

“I just…There’s something I haven’t…” Clara started poorly. She rubbed a hand down her face in frustration and shame and held back a sob, feeling the pinch behind her eyes. “I feel like I can’t help myself. I treated people like me everyday, but I can’t seem to take my own advice.”

“Clara, there’s a reason doctors don’t treat themselves,” Pepper told her. “And no one expects you to.”

“I’ve heard some fairly messed up things working as a psychiatrist for SHIELD, even just going through Bucky’s files. But I could never have truly imagined what it was like to…”

“I understand,” Pepper said gently. “I understand what it’s like to go through something that you feel like no one in the world can understand.”

Pepper didn’t need to elaborate, Clara just knew she understood what she was going through. She choked out a laugh. “This is one of those times I wish my mum were alive,” she whispered, wiping at her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “What do I do?”

There was some quick tapping on Pepper’s end, a keyboard on a computer. “Let me give you the number for the doctor I saw after the incident with Extremis,” she murmured. “He’s here in California, but I’m sure he’d be willing to video chat.”

“Thank you,” Clara breathed. “Bucky saved me but I just feel like…”

Pepper let out a breath. “Guys like them are the ones usually doing the saving,” Pepper said. “They don’t understand what it’s like to be completely…helpless in situations like that. These things don’t happen to normal people.”

Clara pulled her phone from her ear as it vibrated, an email notification popping up. “Thank you, Pepper. Really.”

“Call him, talk to him,” Pepper advised. “Try to take it easy for a while. Cancel all your appointments for the next week or two and just take some time for yourself.”

Clara sighed and sunk lower into the couch. “I don’t know how to help Bucky if I’m this…”

“No one expects you to,” she interrupted. “His healing process is going to take a long time. Years, even, if I were to guess. That man has been through more than anyone could fathom. You’re just one person, Clara. And you’ve already worked wonders on him.” Clara could hear the smile in the woman’s voice. “He’ll be okay for a few weeks without you.” There was a pause before Pepper’s tone changed. “Actually, he’s probably the only other person in the world who understands what you went through.”

“I know. We talked a little…”

There was a pause. “Call that doctor, tell him I referred you. His receptionists name is Crystal, she can set you up. Things might not be the same, but you’ll find a way to be okay.”

“Thank you, Pepper,” Clara said. “Thank you.”

“Feel free to call me anytime, Clara,” Pepper said. “I mean it.”

Clara sat in the dark of the living room for a little while after her call with Pepper ended. She wanted to get up and make some tea, get a snack, she wanted to go back to bed. She wanted things to go back to normal. But Pepper had stirred up a thought in Clara’s mind that she hadn’t thought of before. Things would probably never be normal again, at least not how they were. But why? Why couldn’t things go back to that?

Because now she’d be wary, always looking over her shoulder for a monster in a black uniform to drug her and throw her into a pod to freeze. But for how long?

Soft footsteps coming down the hallway made her jump a little, dropping her phone into the crack in the couch cushions. Her head whipped around to see Bucky walking down the hallway towards her, his arm glinting in the moonlight coming in from the windows.

“You got two options,” he said, leaning on the couch behind her, hands gripping the back on either side of her.

“Bloody hell,” she breathed. “You’re like a ghost.”

He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, tried to make noise as I was coming so you’d hear me. I didn’t wanna scare you.”

“Mission failed,” she muttered. “What are you doing up?”

“Like I was saying. You got two options. You can come back to bed with me, or I can throw you over my shoulder and you come back to bed with me.” One side of his lips was turned up in a smirk that made her heart race for an entirely different reason.

Clara pressed her lips together, he had startled her, but she’d quickly been okay. Maybe she wasn’t as bad off as she thought. Maybe she would get through this… “Option three I make tea and we stay out here?”

The smirk returned. “Option one or two?”

Clara pretended to think it over for a second. “I’m not really tired,” she started. “I’ve got some things—”

Bucky leaned over the couch and lifted her up over his shoulder easily. She let out a small shriek before slapping her own hand over her mouth so she didn’t wake up Steve. Bucky marched her back to his room and carefully dumped her back onto her side of the bed in the pile of blankets she’d slid out of earlier.

“You need sleep,” he said, pulling back the blankets on his own side to get in. “A doc once told me sleep was healing.”

Clara smiled. “To be honest, I’m surprised you’re having a good day after…”

Bucky’s face fell for a fraction of a second before he rolled onto his back. “It’s easier to forget my problems when I’m trying to help you forget yours.”

“You mean that it’s helpful having someone who went through something you did, too,” she guessed quietly, noting the quick flick of his eyes as he glanced at her before returning to stare at the ceiling. “I still might not fully understand everything you went through, but I understand some now.”

“I wish you didn’t have to understand at all,” he whispered, holding his metal hand up. “I feel more like myself than I have in as long as I can remember. There’s still a darkness there, at the corners, reminding me that I’ll never be the same Bucky…”

“Literally no one is asking you to be the same Bucky,” Clara chuckled. “And, if I may be a little blunt, everyone who knew that Bucky is gone.”

“Steve’s not.”

“Steve is a very flexible person,” Clara said flatly. “He’s happy as long as you aren’t being controlled anymore.”

Bucky only hummed in response and dropped his hand to his chest, feeling the weight of it like a dark reminder.

Clara watched Bucky as a silence fell between them and he slowly drifted off to sleep. It wasn’t until the sun had risen that she managed to drift off. Steve had woken up and gone for his run, and returned. Bucky had slept through the night, she noted, wondering briefly if that was the longest night of sleep he’d had in a while.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this story is officially caught up with what I've posted on FFnet, so don't expect updates ALL the time ;P I only updated today because a kind person commented and told me they binged the whole thing so.....thank you, wonderful human bean :) Have a chapter..

Bucky yawned as he dropped into a chair at the kitchen table.

“Did you actually get sleep?” Steve teased from the counter, flipping through a newspaper.

“Some. Clara’s finally sleeping.” He leaned his chin into his hand. “Don’t think she slept much all night.”

Steve pushed the paper aside and stood up straight. “Listen, Buck, we need to talk about Clara.”

Bucky turned to Steve slowly, a challenging look on his face that made Steve laugh. “What about her?”

“Look, I know you’re doing better, but I just feel like maybe we should find someone else for you to see in the meantime,” Steve explained. “Clara’s going to need to see someone herself, and I just feel like with the way things are going, it might be a conflict of interest for her, anyways—”

Bucky pinched his eyes shut and held up a hand. “Hold on, Pal,” Bucky muttered. He pressed his lips together for a second before leveling a look at the blond man waiting patiently, if not a bit amused, at the counter. “I was fine not seeing someone when we first got here. And what do you mean the way things are going?”

Steve gave Bucky a deadpan stare. “Buck, she’s in your bed right now.” Bucky rolled his eyes at the implication, and wondered briefly if he was referring to his pre-war ways with women. “And when you first got here you were lucky if you got two hours of sleep. I can talk to Tony or Banner and see if we can find you someone we can trust. It can’t hurt. I was more worried about you settling into a routine and working on remembering things before I pushed this issue.”

“They could be Hydra.”

“Clara could have been Hydra and you trusted her.”

“If she didn’t have that face I wouldn’t have,” Bucky hissed forcefully.

“Please just…try,” Steve pled. “I had to see someone for six months after they woke me up. I don’t know if he’s still with SHIELD but I think Dr. Lindley would be good. He was nice.”

Bucky looked up at Steve and sighed, mulling it over. He ran a hand through his hair as he said, “If you can find someone you trust. Not Tony. Not Pepper. Not Banner. You have to trust him before I’ll see him.”

“Why do I have to trust him?” Steve asked, unable to keep the pleased smirk off his face.

Bucky turned away from his friend and towards the TV in the other room playing the news softly. “Because you’re the most untrusting person I’ve met since the day at the river,” he muttered, his turn to smirk at Steve’s eye roll that he caught in his peripheral vision. “A lot different from back then. If you were this paranoid back then, no way you woulda tried to enlist—what was it, four times?”

Steve gave a small smile and nodded down at the counter as he leaned against it. “Five, actually.”

“Hm,” Bucky frowned. “I’m missing one.” He made a mental note to mark that in his notebook.

Steve turned to a cabinet and pulled out a box of poptarts, tossing them across the kitchen. Bucky jerked in surprise, but caught them easily. He studied the bright art on the box for a minute before looking back up at Steve.

“What are these?” he asked flatly. “Is this what kids these days are eating for breakfast?”

Steve grinned. “Gotta keep up with these young folk.”

“You keep making old man jokes at me and I’m gonna start thinking you like getting punched,” Bucky grumbled as he opened the box and pulled out a foil package. 

“Pretty sure you started it, Pal.”

Bucky grumbled about how he should have let the bigger guys teach him a lesson as he read the label on the back of the box. “This is all sugar. And shit I can’t even pronounce.”

“As most things are these days,” Steve laughed, turning to the cabinet and pulling down a mug.

Bucky opened his mouth to respond when Clara appeared in the hall, yawning. He smiled at her, taking in her exceptionally calm demeanor. She wasn’t half as tense as she was when he’d found her in the living room late the night before.

“Oh, I love these things,” she murmured, sitting at the table next to him and taking the foil package from his hands.

“’Course you do,” he muttered, leaning back in his chair.

“What one?” She asked as she pulled the foil open and slid one out. “The blueberry ones are the best, but strawberry is a close second.”

“They look disgusting. That’s not a breakfast.”

Clara shot a grin to Steve. “He’s a fan of iHop,” she told him and Bucky’s head dropped back as he stared at the ceiling. “Did he tell you about his first trip to iHop?”

“You took him to iHop? When?” Steve poured hot water into a mug on top of a tea bag before moving to the kitchen table to join them. He slid the cup in front of her with a clean spoon and a little glass jar of sugar.

“When we were staying at Stark Tower.” She laughed at the look Bucky was giving her.

Bucky leaned forward and pointed menacingly at Steve. “Careful, Pal, I know some embarrassing stories about you. We went through puberty together.”

Steve grinned. “Key word there is together, Buck.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and leaned over to pinch off a corner of Clara’s pop tart.

“Good, isn’t it?” Clara asked, pressing the mug to her cheek as Bucky popped the piece into his mouth.

“It’s like strawberry flavored sand.”

“Oh, stop.” 

As much as it killed him to ask, and Bucky saw the look Steve’s face before the words left his friend’s mouth, he knew it needed to be talked about. “How are you feeling?” Steve asked, sharing a glance with Bucky when Clara froze before slowly lowering her mug to the table.

“Better,” she admitted. “Still a little…I called Pepper last night. She suggested a psychiatrist for me to talk to.”

“Clara—” Bucky began stiffly.

“Not that talking to you guys isn’t helpful, I just think I need a professional,” she finished lamely, feeling small and dumb. She ran her finger around the rim of the cup, not wanting to look up at either of them men. She felt like a failure. She’d been tasked with helping Bucky, and now she couldn’t even help herself. What was the point of her?

“Steve was suggesting we find you someone,” Bucky muttered finally, letting out a breath quietly.

Steve nodded slowly. “I didn’t think to ask Pepper. She went through a lot a while back with Extremis. Don’t ask,” he muttered when Bucky raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’ve set up an appointment to talk with him later this afternoon through video chat,” she said with a nod. “I’ll probably head back to my apartment soon anyways—”

“Nope,” Bucky interrupted immediately.

Clara frowned. “Excuse me?”

“I think he just means he doesn’t want you to rush being alone just yet—”

“I don’t trust her to be alone,” Bucky argued.

“Say that again?” Clara demanded, sitting up straighter, but she saw the instant regret on his face.

“Not you, I don’t trust everyone else.”

“Here’s the thing,” Clara started in a tone Bucky had come to recognize as her Therapist Voice. “One day, you’re not going to be around all the time, and I’m going to have to live on my own again. I have to get over the fear of being alone at some point and it’s better to do it now than later down the line when it’s harder and the fear is deep.”

“She’s got a point, Buck,” Steve murmured. “We’ll be two floors up, in the same building.”

Bucky leveled a blank stare at Steve. “Sharon Carter.”

“Point taken,” he mumbled immediately, “but—”

Clara held up both her hands in a placating gesture. “How about this, my couch pulls out, you can sleep there tonight if it’ll make you feel better, but I have to do this.”

Bucky considered this for a second before nodding once, wondering what kinds of tech Steve still had from SHIELD, and if some sort of listening device was among them. Briefly, he wished he had access to the arsenal that Hydra had for him…

“Alright, that’s settled,” Clara mumbled around a mouthful of the last of her poptart. She stood. “I’m going to go shower, then go back to my apartment for my video conference call with this specialist. I’ll be fine,” she stressed when Bucky’s brows dropped. “I’ll come back up here when I’m finished.”

“She’ll be talking to someone that knows Stark, Buck,” Steve tried. “If something happens during the call, I’m sure he’ll alert someone.”

Clara didn’t wait for Bucky to respond. She poked his nose as she passed, returning to the bathroom she’d used the night before. She heard Steve chuckling behind her.

“Connie used to do that to you all the time,” she heard Steve murmur, his deep voice carrying down the hallway. “You hated it.”

“I know.”

Clara smirked and shut the door behind her.


	33. Chapter 33

“You can walk me down to my apartment, check under the bed and in the closet for monsters if you’d like,” Clara smirked as she gathered her things. Honestly, she wouldn’t have minded someone like Steve or Bucky poking through her apartment looking for someone…or things. So she didn’t put up a fight when Bucky pushed himself off the couch where he’d been watching the news with Steve to go pull on his boots by the door.

“You’re still welcome to stay here any time,” Steve offered, muting the TV.

Clara smiled. “Let’s just see how tonight goes, and I’ll let you know.” She pulled the strap to her bag tighter over her shoulder as Bucky straightened.

“I’ll be right back,” he muttered over his shoulder as he held the door open for her to leave.

“Don’t disgrace your—” Bucky let the door drop closed, smacking the door frame loudly, but he could still hear Steve cackling on the couch.

“What did he say?” Clara asked when he joined her at the top of the staircase, he brows furrowed and eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Nothing, ignore him,” he grumbled, nudging her down the steps.

Clara bounced down quickly ahead of him, eyes darting around the landing leading to her hall on the first floor. “Hard to remember he’s this big hero when he talks like that.”

“That’s new,” he grunted, stopping behind her at her door. “He wasn’t like that before the war. The idea of holding a girl’s hand was scandalous for him.”

Clara giggled, pushing the door open but stepping back so he could enter first. She watched as he silently made his way through her one-bedroom apartment, opening and closing doors and cabinets, checking in corners and nooks she wouldn’t have even thought to look.

“I think you’re alright,” he sighed, meeting her back in the entryway.

Her hands found his face, cupping his cheeks, and her thumbs ran over the corners of his lips. “You look so sad,” she murmured, but her voice was like an echo and in a blink, a quick flash, Clara was replaced with Connie for a moment, before Clara returned.

“Stop,” he winced, pulling away. He knew that memory, or how it started at least. He knew it was their goodbye and he wasn’t ready to relive that part of his history yet.

“Bucky?” it was Clara that had called out in her accent, but it was Connie that he saw. He pinched his eyes shut and pushed away from Clara, taking a slow breath, willing the memory to die.

“Stop talking,” he snapped, trying to take a slow breath, focusing on the hum of the air conditioning, the whir of electrical appliances around the quiet apartment. The things that were unfamiliar to him in the 40s were helping to ground him. After a few moments of silence, he opened his eyes again and looked at her, taking in her concerned face and clenched fists. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” she frowned. “Did you remember something?”

“Tried not to,” he grunted, dropping down onto her couch.

“That’s not good,” Clara mumbled. “I know you’re not going to want to remember everything—but repressing memories is harmful, even as a coping mechanism—”

“It’s nothing from when I was the Winter Soldier,” he sighed, looking up at her. “The day I shipped off—”

Instant understanding washed over Clara’s face and he frowned as he watched pity take over her features. “Painful as that goodbye with everyone must have been, you still shouldn’t—”

“Just not here, not right now,” he interrupted.

“Alright,” she shot back. “But promise me something.” She waited silently, eyebrows jerking up quickly to suggest she was waiting for him to acknowledge it.

He sighed in defeat. “What?”

“Go to therapy.”

“No.”

Clara crossed her arms. “Try it.”

“No.” Bucky shifted on the couch, an infinitesimal motion that somehow made him seem more powerful, dominant. Intimidating. 

“For me?” she tried with a grin. He could try to use his arsenal to scare her aware from the idea, but she had an arsenal just as an intelligent woman that she could use to coax him towards the idea.

“Why is this important to you?” he asked instead. He sounded frustrated, but there was a softness that broke her heart a little.

“You’re important to me,” she explained easily, finally dropping her bag on a hook next to the door and toeing off her flats.

“Why? Because your grandma wrote about me in her diary?”

She dropped down sideways on the couch next to him, a leg curled underneath her. She smiled. “We’ve been through this,” she said slowly. “I’m helping you because you’re a friend. Because what Hydra did to you was awful. They stole from you irreplaceable time, experiences, friends and family.”

A smile twitched on his lips briefly, and he picked up her hand that was resting on her knee and brushed a thumb across the dried skin. “Thank you.”

“That’s all I ever need in return,” she grinned. “Now.” Clara stood and held out a hand to help him up. “You need to go before my call starts. I’ll be alright here by myself.”

“Clara,” he started slowly, frowning. 

“Come back around dinner, okay?” she offered with a dramatic sigh. “If will make you more comfortable to sleep on my couch tonight…”

“Thank you,” he said again, standing and surprising them both by pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She watched wordlessly as he glanced around the open living room and kitchen before nodding contentedly and leaving.

“Oh, my god, what is happening?” she asked herself, feeling her red cheeks flaming still, and she ran her hands through her hair as she stared at the front door.

-x-

Dr. Beck turned out to be a kind looking old man with a bald head and thick beard that reminded her of her grandfather. She knew talking to him would be the easy part…

“So, why don’t you start by telling me what happened to you, in your own words,” he started, shifting in his chair slightly.

Clara knew what that meant, he was going to assess the specific words she used to analyze her thought processes and feelings. “It’s hard to separate myself from this,” she grumbled.

He let out a chuckle. “I can understand. Just, try not to think about the why in regards to my questions, and just focus on your answer. Pretend you’re speaking freely with a friend.”

Clara nodded faintly. “Well, it started on a usual Tuesday. I was meeting up with a couple of my mates at a local café,” she explained. “I had been working with one on some…PTSD related trauma. He’d been a captive of Hydra’s. There was some extreme conditioning and shock therapy.”

“He must be a very complicated case,” he noted.

Clara smiled. “He’s getting better slowly.”

“Tell me about where that day went wrong.”

“It wasn’t anything I could have controlled, though,” she admitted. “It was business as usual. I met Steve and Bucky for a bite and it all just fell apart rather quickly because of Hydra. Bucky is conditioned to react to certain phrases.”

“Like brainwashing?” he asked slowly, Clara felt more for clarification than out of skepticism.

“Heavy conditioning over decades.”

Dr. Beck nodded slowly, making notes. “Go through a few of the moments leading up to what happened.”

Clara nodded slowly and crossed her legs beneath her. “Like I said, we met for lunch. I was asking Bucky about how he was adjusting to life in DC, what kinds of things he was remembering. Then there was just this voice on a PA system of sorts. He starts reading out these words in Russian. People were confused, but no one really reacted until the helicopters arrived.”

“How many?”

Clara’s brows furrowed in confusion. “What does that matter?”

“You’re in DC, only a short while after it was attacked, after the helicarriers ended up in the Potomac,” he explained. “You were in that accident as well, right? You have a scar on your arm.”

Clara looked down at the thin pink line trailing up her forearm. She’d more or less forgotten it once the stitches had fallen out. “Yes.”

“So, after the helicopters combined with this strange foreign announcement, people started to panic?” he asked. 

Clara nodded quickly, realizing the point he was trying to make. “Yes, but Bucky was solely responding to the words,” she insisted. “Both he and Steve have been through their fair share of wars and tough instances.”

“Were you panicked?”

Clara pursed her lips, but she could only remember being worried about Bucky’s response. The panic hadn’t come until he’d bolted down the street. “I was when Bucky started to panic,” she told him. “I was terrified at one point. The voice finished the phrase and the change in him…” She struggled to find the words to explain what she’d witnessed firsthand. “It was like resetting a machine. All the—the things that made Bucky him—it was like his personality was sucked straight from him.”

“Why did that terrify you?” He tapped his pen against the paper, head cocked.

“I’d worked so hard—he’d worked so hard to get himself back, and in seconds all of that was gone,” she muttered. “Also that he took a swing at me with his metal arm. Steve caught it, though.”

“Alright, so Hydra got him back under their control, and that terrified you,” he said, using her words. “What happened next?”

Clara explained trying to run, but running into a wall of three agents, and how she was quickly knocked unconscious. She told him with little emotion about waking up several times on the trip all the way to ultimately being frozen and when Bucky finally got her out.

“I thought I was hallucinating when he found me,” she told Dr. Beck. “I was so cold, and I couldn’t stop shaking. But he was there in front of me, taking off his sweatshirt to put on me. I thought I was dreaming…” 

Clara ran both her hands through her hair, elbows on the table. She was hunched over in her chair, just as she had been before. “But there was something I didn’t tell Bucky or Steve,” she breathed.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to talk about it.”

“With them?”

Clara paused at that, realizing that yes, it was just that she hadn’t wanted to talk about it with Bucky, in particular. “Yes. I didn’t want to tell Bucky about this.”

“Can you tell me?” he asked softly. “If for nothing other than to get it out of your system.”

Clara took a deep breath. “They…they unfroze me once,” she started slowly, quietly, as if Bucky two floors up would hear her if she spoke too loudly.

“For what?”

“They didn’t need me to tell them where Bucky was—they knew where he was the day they took me from DC. They unfroze me and took me into a room.” Clara swallowed roughly and sat up straight. She took the time to cross her legs underneath her while she composed herself, remembering. All the while, Dr. Beck waited patiently. “They took me to a room and cuffed me to a table. The only time they spoke English was when they needed my cooperation.”

Dr. Beck frowned. “Cooperation with what?”

“If it would be easier for me to do it as opposed to them forcing me,” Clara explained quickly with a wave of her hand. “They never explained exactly what they did. They took blood a couple of times, even injected me with something.”

Dr. Beck looked a little alarmed, his hand moving across a legal pad in front of him. “And you never found out what it was they injected you with?” Clara shook her head. “Clara, I really want you to go get some—”

Clara shook her head again, faster this time. “I’m planning to go see my regular physician soon. I just… Clara pursed her lips for a second, wondering if she should admit her next thought. “It might have been a little illegal, but I pulled Steve’s file from the SHIELD database a year or so ago. I was interested at what about his physiology was different in him from normal humans. I wrote down some of the markers found in his blood work back then. It’s in my notes and I plan to fully compare that to my own workup when I can get it.”

Dr. Beck scratched his chin, still frowning. “I would still go get a full work-up,” he suggested. “Just to make sure.” Clara nodded and he made a few more notes before straightening again. “Is that all they did in that room? Take some blood samples and give you the one injection?”

Clara sat still, reliving those long, long moments. In total, she’d probably only been in the room for an hour or so. But it had felt like an eternity of fear and anxiety. “I got desperate at one point,” she muttered. “I tried to bite the man that had been working on me. I knew I probably should have just cooperated, but I was losing my mind.”

“In those kinds of situations, we rarely think about anything other than survival,” Dr. Beck told her. “Your mind identified that these people would harm you and you tried to defend yourself. It’s easy in hindsight to think, Oh, that wasn’t smart, but in the moment, when you’re that scared, it’s difficult.”

Clara crossed her arms and slumped in her seat, feeling the rewarded bruise she’d gotten on her back throb in protest. “Well, they beat me for it. I didn’t even get a good chomp on ‘im.”

“And why did you feel you couldn’t tell Bucky this?” he asked with a tilt of his head, pen tapping annoyingly on the desk.

“Because he went completely mental over me being frozen,” Clara said, trying not to sound condescending. “He already blamed himself for the whole thing with only the knowledge that they froze me, I didn’t want to know how he’d react to finding out they’d experimented on me in any capacity.”

“Do you think you’ll ever tell him what really happened?” he asked, unfazed by her tone.

“What would be the point?” she grumbled. “It’s unnecessary knowledge.”

“Is it?” Dr. Beck questioned, dragging his pen down his list of notes before continuing. “You said they injected you with something. What if it turns out to not be as benign as you thought?”

“Alright,” she conceded. “In that instance, I think I’d have to tell him.”

Dr. Beck removed his glasses and sighed. “Clara, I think you’re well aware that the first step to putting all of this behind you is to get it all out of your system. Especially if you plan on pursuing a relationship with Bucky in the future.” 

He paused and pushed his glasses back up his nose, and Clara stayed quiet, knowing he clearly wasn’t finished. “I believe you owe it to Steve and especially to Bucky to be honest with them about what happened to you in that room, even if it makes no difference, even if it changes nothing.”

“Why?” she dared to ask.

“Because who knows? Maybe it’ll give them some kind of insight as to Hydra’s new motives. Maybe it’ll be pertinent information somewhere down the line and help save someone else,” he explained gently. “They’re clearly experimenting on humans still, who’s to say they aren’t trying to reboot the Winter Soldier program?” He smiled gently. “Or maybe nothing. Maybe Bucky will be upset for a time, but I promise it won’t last forever. You know that.”

“I’m more afraid of him running,” she admitted, pursing her lips in thought. She took a breath to ease the pinching behind her eyes. “I’m more afraid I’ll tell him and he’ll leave and run off to hunt down who knows…”

“Alright, let’s table that for now,” Dr. Beck announced, flipping to a new page in his book. “How about you tell me about the relationships in your life.”

“My relationships?” she echoed, surprised by the turn in topic.

“What is your relationship like with your parents?”

Clara smiled at that. That was a topic that would calm her nerves from how tightly wound the previous topic had made them.


	34. Chapter 34

“I’m not ready for you to go.” Her voice was like a whisper, her hands cold against his cheeks. “I want more time.”

“I know, I do, too,” he murmured back, tucking her scarf closer to her cheeks. “And we will. As soon as I win this war and we can all come home, alright?”

Connie allowed a small smirk to grace her features as her hands dropped from his face to his wrists. “Who says I’ll wait for you?”

“I don’t expect you to,” he said, oddly serious, and all amusement left her face. Bucky reached up and dragged a thumb between her brows, trying to smooth out the lines there. “I’m serious. If I don’t—”

“Stop it,” she demanded harshly. 

He tucked a hair behind her ear that the wind had blown in her face. “If I don’t come back, make someone else as happy as you’ve made me, alright?”

“Stop it,” she repeated, voice breaking this time.

“All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy.”

She pushed on his chest lightly with a huff. “What about you, Buck? What about your happiness? What if you come back and I’m married to another man with a house and kids—”

“I’m happy if you’re happy, Doll,” he told her with an easy smile and a peck on the cheek.

She narrowed her eyes at him as he straightened and she grabbed him by the lapels of his uniform, pulling him back down to her and kissing him properly, long and hard. She could feel the tears running down her face now and he reached up with a hand to brush them away as he pulled back.

“Do me a favor,” he murmured, resting his forehead on hers. 

“Anything,” she breathed.

“Watch out for Steve and my sister?”

Connie let out a genuine laugh. “Not sure if I’ll be as effective keeping Steve out of trouble, but I’ll give it my best.”

“That’s all I ask.” He glanced behind him at the train, where Steve was speaking with a few other men shipping out. “I’ve got to go. I want to talk to Steve—”

“I understand,” she said quickly, noting the regret and clouded emotions on his face. She knew he wished he could stand there and talk with her forever, she felt the same. She felt so much more, but she couldn’t force the words out of her mouth. If only he would say them first, she thought selfishly. “I have to get to work soon anyways.”

He kissed her once more. “I said my goodbyes to Ma and Rebecca this morning, you and Steve were the only ones left.”

“Well,” she said, smoothing out the front of his jacket. “Get it over with so you can come back to us soon, alright? And don’t go finding some new dame in one of those nurses, you hear me?”

Bucky chuckled at her undying façade of optimism. He loved that about her. “Yes, ma’am. Only nurse for me is you, Doll.” She reached up and poked him in the nose with a giggle, but he didn’t miss the way her cold-bitten cheeks grew just a few shades redder.

“Do great things, Sergeant Barnes,” she grinned before bouncing on her toes and pecking his cheek. She nudged him in Steve’s direction, who was standing alone on the platform now. Most of the other soldiers had finished their partings and had made their way into the cars. “Now, go tell him to make my job of watching him easy, alright?”

“I’ll write to you,” he promised, backing away slowly.

She rolled her eyes. “Of course, I’ll write back if I’m not too busy.”

“Of course,” he laughed. And then his back was to her and the smile dropped from his face, his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. There was a pinch behind his eyes that he refused to acknowledge, and he fought the tears tooth and nail.

He focused on Steve, now, throwing an arm around the smaller man as he guided them towards the car he needed to board.

“I have a job for you,” he said sternly, and Steve looked up at him. “I need you to watch over Connie and Rebecca.”

“Is that all?” Steve chuckled, pulling away. “Buck, I woulda done that, you didn’t have to ask.”

“Alright, fine,” Bucky conceded, crossing his arms. “Then the only job I have for you is to please, please stay outta trouble, alright?”

“No promises,” Steve grinned and Bucky rolled his eyes. 

“No, I need you to promise me.”

Steve continued his grin and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I promise I’ll try.”

“I told Connie to watch after you, too, you hear me?” Bucky dropped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Don’t make her job harder than it needs to be.” With that, Bucky pulled Steve to him.

“Be careful, Buck,” Steve murmured as they pulled back.

“Yeah, I’ll try.”

Bucky blinked, eyes focusing on the toaster across the kitchen from where he was sitting at the island. Slowly, the ringing in his ears dulled and he let out a loud, long breath. It was like he’d been daydreaming, but he knew he’d been pushing off that memory too long. As soon as he’d sat down after leaving Clara in her apartment, it had hit him like a truck.

He spun in the stool to turn towards the living room where Steve was still sitting on the couch watching the TV. He was looking back at him over his shoulder. 

“Finally back with us?” Steve asked. “It’s been like an hour.”

“I gave you one job,” he said instead.

“What?” Steve sat up and turned to face him properly. “When?”

“I told you to stay out of trouble,” Bucky said, standing and walking over to the couch. “I told you I asked Connie to watch after you, and to not make her job harder than necessary because I figured putting someone else out would keep you in line.”

“To be fair, they both made out alright,” Steve muttered. “I mean, Buck. You were shipping off to war. I’d tell you anything to keep your mind at ease.”

“You had no intention of staying out of trouble,” Bucky grumbled, dropping down onto the couch next to Steve and rubbing his eyes with the fingers of his flesh hand.

Steve shrugged. “By then, I already knew I was going to participate in the program.”

“So you had no intentions of actually staying out of trouble, so you just lied to me.”

Steve stayed silent until Bucky glanced up at him with raise eyebrows. “Pretty much, yeah,” he shrugged.

Bucky’s retort was cut off by Steve’s phone ringing. The conversation was short, Steve leaned over to jot down an address and phone number on a scrap of an envelope on the coffee table at one point.

“You’re sure he’s clean?” Steve had glanced at Bucky briefly, and he knew then they were talking about him in some capacity. “Alright, I’ll let him know.”

“Well?” Bucky prompted, slouching into the couch cushions as Steve ended the call.

“Dr. Lindley is here in DC still,” Steve said, handing over the paper. “He’s who I saw after I woke up. Tony checked him over, and nothing in the leaked files has anything negative to say about him. Tony couldn’t find anything more than speeding tickets.”

“Do you trust him?”

“I do.”

Bucky frowned, but finally nodded. “Alright. Fine.”


	35. Chapter 35

Bucky dropped down onto Clara’s couch and flipped through the DVD cases she had handed him. 

“I ordered Chinese,” she said, shuffling into the room in soft slippers and a pajama set covered in little owls. “Have you had Chinese before?”

“Steve orders it all the time,” he muttered distractedly. “What are all these?”

“Classics,” she told him, curling into the arm chair next to the couch.

“Mean Girls?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, holding up the rather pink DVD case.

“Alright, maybe not so much that one,” she giggled. “I threw that one in because I rather like it. But I think you’d like Fight Club.”

Bucky studied the cover art, frowning at the description on the back. “I think I could take any of these kids with both arms behind my back,” he muttered.

Clara stood again and crouched in front of the TV stand, pulling open the little doors to reveal rows and rows of DVDs. “I’ve gathered quite the collection over time,” she explained when she glanced over her shoulder to see him watching her. She scanned the rows before pulling one out. “This is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine.”

“Alien?”

“If you like that, you might like The Thing, but I don’t have that one on DVD.”

Bucky grunted noncommittally and she took the DVD back from him, popping the case open and heading for the player beneath the TV. A silence fell and he fought the urge to break it by asking how her session went. 

She stood up as the screen came to life, previews for other movies beginning to play. “Did you talk to Steve?” she asked, returning to her chair.

“About what?”

“Therapy.”

“After the weekend,” he muttered, crossing his arms. He tried to focus on the ads, but he could practically see her eyebrows pulling together.

“What does the weekend have to do with talking to—”

“I did,” he interrupted calmly. “I have an appointment after the weekend.”

“Oh,” she chirped. “Fantastic.”

He frowned at her cheerfulness, finally looking over at her. “How was your session?”

Clara busied herself by tugging a knitted blanket off the back of her chair and pulling it over herself. “It went fine.”

“Yeah?” he asked, but it came out like a challenge. He heard it in his own voice, and Clara looked up at him, hands stilling as they tucked the blanket down under her feet.

“Yeah.” He noted the suspicion in her voice, and she was mentally begging him to drop it. The doctors voice in her head echoed, encouraging her to open up and tell him what had happened. Her own voice followed, her doctor tone reverberating through the walls of her own head. Bucky isn’t made of glass, and keeping things from him helps no one…

Clara pressed her lips together as Bucky’s eyes narrowed and she knew it was about to all tumble out, because she knew the minute he prodded even just a word more, she’d break and tell him.

“Alright,” he finally said, returning his attention back to the TV. “I might not be a doctor like you, doll, but I know how to listen.”

“Thanks,” she sighed quietly, relaxing. Later, she promised in her head. She would tell him later. A plan started brewing in her head while she skipped through the previews to get to the main menu of the DVD. Maybe she could take him to iHop in the morning, somewhere public, that way he couldn’t make a scene…

-x-

She woke to a loud thud, a sound that reverberated in the darkness and shook her bed enough to rouse her from her dreamless sleep. Disoriented, she wasn’t even sure what had woken her at first, until she heard another thud and a grunt from the main rooms of her apartment.

“Bucky?” she called out, padding down the hallway and pulling her fleece blanket tight around her shoulders.

His metal arm glinted in the thin beams of line streaking in from between the curtains, and he froze, spinning towards her.

“Are you alright?” she asked slowly, noting the tension in the air, the feeling of something being wrong making her hair stand up.

Bucky let out a jagged breath, and then she saw his bunched muscles relax. “Clara…” She stood merely feet away from him now, the couch between them. He moved to push his flesh hand through his hair and she could see a subtle shake to his fingers.

“Are you alright?” she asked before backpedalling. “I mean—I know you’re not alright, but—”

“I’m fine,” Bucky sighed, but there was amusement in his voice. “I think I just fell off the couch.”

Clara didn’t hide her grin, but she dug her fingers into the cushions at the back of the couch. She’d worried that would be a problem for him. The length of him hadn’t fit on the couch, and she’d hinted heavily that he’d be happier in his own bed. “You don’t have to stay—alright,” she sighed when he shot her a look again before moving to settle back onto the couch. “Were you having a nightmare?”

“It was nothing,” he mumbled. 

“Do…you want to talk about it?”

He froze. “Do I look like I want to talk about it?” She watched the regret melt his expression in the dim lighting when she raised her eyebrows in surprise at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound the way it did.”

Clara crossed her arms tightly around herself and moved around the couch, dropping down next to him once he’d sat him. She let her side brush with his, the contact helping to ease her own nerves. She found herself leaning into him. “I told you once, that I didn’t expect you to do anything I’m not willing to do myself, remember?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll trade you,” she offered quietly, pulling the corners of her blanket into a tight ball against her chest. “I’ll tell you about my nightmare if you tell me about yours.”

When he didn’t respond, she chanced a glance up at him. Bucky was looking down at her, a softness on his face that she’d never seen before. She wanted to reach up, trace the lines of his face with her fingers, brush across the stubble of his jaw…

She cleared her throat and looked back down at the coffee table, nudging a remote out of the way so she could prop her feet up. “So I was dreaming I was in that interrogation room they took me into, they were asking me questions in a language I don’t understand, and when I didn’t answer the way they wanted, they would hurt me.”

“Did they do that to you?”

“They hurt me,” she said vaguely before continuing. “After a while, I couldn’t feel my hands anymore, and I think I might have even been missing fingers. They dragged me down the hall by my hair, but I couldn’t scream. You woke me up before they could throw me back into the bloody pod.”

Bucky let out a breath between his teeth and slouched into the couch cushions. “Clara, look,” he started quietly. “I could tell you, but my nightmares are literally the stuff of nightmares. I’m not trying to diminish what happened to you, because no one should have to go through that.”

“But what you went through was infinitely worse,” Clara finished for him. She disentangled her hand from her blanket and found his flesh on in his lap. She pushed her fingers between his rougher ones. “I understand that.”

His fingers folded around hers and he leaned heavily against his metal hand on the arm rest next to him. “It was a memory. I was in a kitchen, waiting for the target to get home. It was easier that way, not public where accidental witnesses were more common. I think it was in the eighties, if their kitchen décor was anything to go by.”

Clara let out a soft chuckle.

“I was sitting at the kitchen table. I could hear his wife getting ready for bed, his son was supposed to be asleep, but he was awake and playing on the floor of his room. There was a floorboard up there he must have been sitting on that was loose, because I could hear it from the other side of the house.” Bucky took a breath and swallowed heavily. “The target came home, and the son heard the garage door.”

Clara’s heart sunk, knowing how this was going to end before he could even get the words out. “The whole family, then?”

“No witnesses,” he muttered bitterly. He glanced down at her, waiting for either the look of pity or disgust or even fear. But her sadness just seemed to mirror his own. Maybe that was worse, he decided. He didn’t want to burden her with this anymore. “Steve called the therapist he saw when he woke up. I’m going to see him Monday afternoon.”

“You said before,” Clara said, genuinely brightening. “That’s great. I’m happy you finally agreed to it.”

Bucky only grunted in response. He ran a thumb over her knuckles, still dry. “You should go back to sleep.”

“I don’t think either of us is going to get much sleep for the rest of the night,” she admitted. “I got a few hours, and that’s a much better step than I anticipated.”

“You should try, though. I’ll be out here. You’ll be alright.”

Clara pursed her lips and frowned. “That’s not really the issue, now is it?” she mumbled. “You can’t protect me in my dreams.”

“I can’t protect you in reality, either,” he retorted dryly.

She rolled her eyes and took a deep breath before standing, pulling on their entwined hands. “Come on then,” she said quickly, before her nerve left her. “Might as well try to get some sleep together, then.”

“I’m telling you, Clara, I’m not going to be able to—”

“Then just lie there and wake me up if I’m having a bad dream, yeah?” she interrupted.

He smirked up at her, unmoving. “What happened to wanting to do this alone?”

“Baby steps,” she hissed, tugging again. “You can either go to your own bed or mine, Mr. Barnes.” She felt heat creep into her cheeks when he raised a single eyebrow at her. Embarrassed, she dropped his hand and headed for her room. “Fine.”

But she heard him push himself off the couch and follow her back to her room.


End file.
